Douglas Stewart Fine Books Pty Ltd

JOUHANNEAUD, Paul Limoges: Martial Ardant frères, 1856. Octavo, polychromatic cloth, all edges gilt, 208pp., 23 hand coloured plates of races of the world, including the Americas, Asia, Europe, Africa and the Pacific. A French geographical book for children, recounting voyages by great explorers to the four corners of the globe. The expeditions of Columbus, Cook, Bougainville and La Perouse are recounted, amongst others. The hand coloured lithographed plates are particularly fine.

SCHMIDT, J.M.F. # 359 Schmidt. Berlin : Simon Schropp et Comp, 1820. Engraved map, hand-coloured, 430 x 580 mm, dissected into 9 sections and laid down on linen; original marbled card slip case with manuscript label Charte von Asien und Australien von Schmidt 1820, bearing the stamp of the Furstlich Von der Leyen Bibliothec - The private library of the German aristocratic family Von der Leyen, founded around 1760. The regions of Neu Holland include De Witt’s Land, Edel’s Land, Lowinn Land and P. Nuyt’s Land along the Western coastline. The Swan River, Hawkesbury River and Blue Mountains are all shown. Fine. Tooley 1125.

BELLIN, Jacques Nicholas # 348 Carte reduite des terres Australes. Gereduceerde Kaart van’t Zuid-land. [Amsterdam? : c. 1760]. Copperplate engraving, 192 x 253mm., original folds, fine. The scarce Dutch version of Bellin’s famous map of Australia, the projected Eastern coastline joining the charted territories of Van Diemen’s Land and Carpentaria. First published in Prevost’s voyages in French in 1753, later German, Danish and Dutch editions followed. Tooley 157.

CHAMPAGNAC, J. B. J. Souvenirs historiques, caracteres, types nationaux, curiosites naturelles, peintures locales, notions geographiques, etc. Illustre de 23 dessins par MM Jules David, Bouchot, Marckl, Bayalos, etc. Paris : P.-C. Lehuby, n.d. (c 1860). Second edition. Octavo, gilt-decorated boards (spine sunned, short split to spine), all edges gilt, 392pp. illustrated with tinted lithographs, sporadic foxing. A fanciful tour of the five continents, typical of the genre, with seven chapters relating to Oceania, including La pieuse negresse de l’Australie. An attractive book.

Paris : Bouasse-Lebel, [c 1860]. Engraved map, 31 x 43cm, with hand colouring, laid on wood and dissected to form a jigsaw puzzle, original backing paper, a few stains, complete. A charming puzzle map of Oceania. The maps were usually unbound sheets from an atlas.

VISSCHER, Nicolas (1618 - 1679) Amsterdam : 1663. Originally issued in a Dutch bible published in Leiden by Elzevir. Fine early (possibly original) colour heightened with gold, original central crease, and a parallel miscrease, pale foxing, a very good copy. The insert celestial maps depict Ptolemaic and Copernican theories of the heavens. The continents of Europe, Asia, Africa and America are represented by allegorical female figures in the four corners. The second world map created by this highly important cartographer. Shirley 431 (first state)

...frégate du roi La Boudeuse, et La Flûte l’Étoile; BOUGAINVILLE, Louis Antoine de (1729-1811) # 1625 en 1776, 1767. 1768 & 1769. Paris : Chez Saillant & Nyon, 1771. Quarto, contemporary full cat’s paw mottled calf with triple fillet, spine in compartments with morocco title label, tooled in gilt, all edges marbled, marbled endpapers, pp. [viii], 417, [3]; eighteenth century owner’s name inscribed on title page, engraved headpieces, tailpieces and initials, 19 copper engraved charts on 20 plates (mostly folding), 3 engraved plates, a fine copy. FIRST EDITION OF THE FIRST FRENCH CIRCUMNAVIGATION. Bougainville’s voyage was of immense importance in terms of the impetus it provided to a renewal of France’s colonial empire following territorial losses suffered to Britain in the Seven Years’ War: it opened up the Pacific for French expansion. Yet what cannot be overstated is the impact Bougainville’s own vivid and romanticised descriptions of the Pacific - specifically Tahiti - had on the French public imagination, her writers, artists and thinkers. The utopian ideal of the noble savage living in an Earthly Paradise owes much to Bougainville’s response to his encounter with the Tahitian culture and landscape. Even though he was not the first European to reach Tahiti - the Englishman Samuel Wallis had done so one year earlier - Bougainville’s account is fundamental to the formation of the European romantic vision of the South Seas. Bougainville had the imprimatur of the French government to undertake a voyage of exploration which would seek to gather scientific, geographical and cultural information. For example, his narrative includes the first vocabulary of the Tahitian language, which is also the first written glossary of any Polynesian language. The advancement of knowledge had not been the principle objective of French voyages of the preceding period, which were motivated by commercial interests. After entering the Pacific through the Straits of Magellan early in 1768, Bougainville went in fruitless search of the fabled ‘Davis Land’, which was rumoured to exist to the west of Chile. He then took possession of the Tuamotu Archipelago and Tahiti for France, providing in his narrative an extensive, detailed and enthusiastic account of Tahiti. Crossing the Pacific he made landfall first in Samoa and then the New Hebrides. From the island of Espiritu Santo, with the thought of possibly discovering the east coast of New Holland, he struck out due west, a course which would have allowed him to reach the coast of Queensland. Fatefully, he was unable to navigate through the Great Barrier Reef, and sailing north instead, he passed through the Solomons (naming Bougainville for himself) and on to Batavia. Bougainville was to learn in Batavia of the exploits of the navigators Wallis and Carteret, both of whom had sailed across the Pacific a short time earlier. However, it was Bougainville’s narrative which was to cause a sensation in France upon its publication, in some part because of its contribution to scientific and geographical knowledge but primarily for the account of Tahiti, which was to have such an enduring effect on the European imagination.