Jean-Baptiste Benoît EYRIÈS

New edition illustrated with 8 hors-texte plates by Rouargue frères.
Publisher's binding in half wine-red shagreen, spine slightly faded with four raised bands decorated with triple gilt compartments enhanced with gilt decorative motifs, covers framed with cold-stamped fillets on wine-red paper boards, white watered silk endpapers and pastedowns, gilt edges.
Some foxing.

First edition illustrated with 24 hand-colored plates, hors-texte, depicting Austrians dressed in various period costumes.
Half red Russian morocco binding, smooth spine with cold-stamped fleurons and gilt title, boards with double cold-stamped fillet frame and roulette decoration, front joint cracked at head, headcaps lightly rubbed, contemporary binding.
Some discreet foxing otherwise handsome and rare work describing the Austrian people in the 19th century, abundantly illustrated with hand-colored engraved plates.

New edition after the first published in 1781 by Deperthes in one volume, it is expanded in this edition of 2 volumes. 3 frontispieces and 3 figures by Gossec and engraved by de Lignon.
Half black sheep binding ca 1840. Spine with false raised bands decorated with compartments, roulettes and gilt fillets. Fine copy, particularly fresh.
The work contains accounts of 38 shipwrecks, notably the wreck of the Méduse in 1816, or of L'Alceste in the Gaspar strait in 1817. The first voyage related dating back to 1431, that of Pierre Quirini, on the coast of Norway.