Abrégé de l'histoire générale des voyages

New edition, without the folio atlas of 15 plates.
Contemporary half blonde sheep bindings. Smooth spine handsomely decorated with anchor and ship tools, rolls and ornaments. Red morocco title labels, green morocco volume labels. Small lack at foot of volume I and at head of volume 4. Foot of volume 14 slightly rubbed.
Preface to L'Abrégé by Depping: "Around the year 1745, some men of letters in England formed the project of a complete collection of all travel accounts published in all the languages of Europe. Abbé Prévost, a writer advantageously known for the success of his novels, undertook to translate the work into French. He kept his word, the work spread throughout Europe. But the English authors abandoning their project, the abbé pursued his course, despite his criticisms of the flaws in their method, and completed the work, without providing readers with a thread that could guide them through the tortuous and innumerable paths, through the arid moors of this vast labyrinth where he had ventured with them.
Here now is what was thought could be done to present it to the public in a more agreeable form: it has been reduced; everything called Navigation Journal has been cut out; When a traveler, who found himself in extraordinary situations, tells his own story, care was taken not to take his place: he was left to speak without changing or adding anything to his account; very few changes were made to descriptions of places and customs, to physical details. But there was added to it, as much as possible, that philosophy which it absolutely lacks, that pure and universal morality, which is dictated and felt only by the heart, which seeks in all the knowledge that man can acquire only new relationships made to attach him to his fellow beings."
Volumes 1 to 4: Africa, by regions and countries. Volumes 5 to 12: Asia, by regions and countries. Volumes 12 to 20: Americas, by regions and countries, with Greenland and the Northern Port. Volumes 21 to 30: Voyages around the world.