Relation d'un voyage dans la Mer du Nord, aux côtes d'Islande, du Groenland, de Ferro, de Schettland ; des Orcades & de Norwège ; fait en 1767 & 1768

Edition published one year after the original, illustrated with four fine copper-engraved plates by Charles Eisen depicting Nordic types (Icelandic women, a bear hunt, Samoyeds, a Laplander in a sleigh) engraved by Le Mire, one folding map by Bellin, thirteen maps, plans, or views (eight of them folding) engraved by Croissey, as well as a charming engraved title vignette and a headpiece by Le Gouaz.

See Sabin, 37616; Chadenat, 1633; Boucher de la Richarderie, I, 380.

Full mottled calf binding, smooth spine richly gilt in compartments decorated with gilt fleurons and geometric motifs, sometimes slightly rubbed, red morocco label, restorations to spine and joints, gilt roll tooling on the caps, red-speckled citron edges, gilt fillets on the board edges; late eighteenth-century binding.

A tall, wide-margined copy.

Provenance: copy from the Château de Menneval, with an engraved bookplate mounted on the pastedown.

Born in 1734 at the manor of Trémarec in Landudal (southern Finistère), Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen-Trémarec already had a distinguished naval career when, in May 1771, he set sail from Lorient for the Indian Ocean.

Promoted to lieutenant in 1763, he invented a new type of vessel — the “corvette canonnière” — suitable for landing operations. In 1767, he commanded the frigate La Folle, and in 1768 the corvette L’Hirondelle, stationed off Iceland to protect French and Flemish fishermen. In doing so, he became well acquainted with the subpolar seas, sailing between Greenland and Bergen.

On his second mission, he brought back from Greenland two polar bear cubs for the King’s menagerie. The present work is the result of these exploratory voyages, which would later continue in the southern hemisphere. His purpose was to describe and chart with precision this little-known region — an essential task for the development of the rapidly expanding “grande pêche”.