Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde

Second edition, and the first in octavo format, of the official account of La Pérouse’s voyage, published in Paris by Plassan in Year VI [1798], following the original quarto edition issued the previous year by the Imprimerie de la République. Four octavo volumes, without the atlas.

On the verso of the half-title in the first volume appears the decree of the National Convention of 19 July 1793 against counterfeiters, followed by a notice from Plassan stating that only copies bearing his signature are to be regarded as authentic; the present copy duly bears his autograph signature in ink, extended with a large flourish. At the end of volume III, 68 leaves of tables record the routes of the Boussole as far as Botany Bay and of the Astrolabe as far as Kamchatka.

Contemporary full tree calf, smooth spines decorated with a gilt lattice of lozenges, gilt friezes at head and foot, gilt rolls framing the black Russia leather lettering- and numbering-pieces, gilt border to the boards, marbled paper endleaves. Loss at the head of the spines of volumes I and IV, a narrow split at the head of the upper joint of volume IV and the lower joint of volume I, upper joints of volumes I and III slightly indented and somewhat rubbed. Scattered foxing. Loss of paper to the lower corner of the final two leaves of volume I, and a 2 cm repair to the inner margin of the title-page of volume II.

Leaving Brest on 1 August 1785 to continue Cook’s work in the Pacific, with instructions personally annotated by Louis XVI, the Boussole and the Astrolabe spent nearly three years following an immense route that took them around Cape Horn to Easter Island, the Sandwich Islands and the coast of Alaska, then south again to Monterey, Macao and Manila, through the seas of Korea and Japan, and on to Kamchatka and Samoa. By the time the two frigates finally reached Botany Bay, the expedition had already suffered several disasters - twenty-one men lost at Lituya Bay and Fleuriot de Langle killed in Samoa; in February 1788, La Pérouse sent his last known dispatches from there, after which all trace of the expedition vanished.

The voyage survived because its papers had taken another route. At successive stages, La Pérouse sent journals, maps and dispatches back to France; in Kamchatka, Barthélemy de Lesseps even left the expedition carrying an essential part of these documents and made his way back to Europe across Siberia. By the time the two ships disappeared, the narrative was already on its way home.

By decree of 22 April 1791, the National Assembly ordered its publication. Milet-Mureau then gathered together what had returned: shipboard journals, official documents, the Mémoire du roi servant d’instruction, inventories of goods embarked and scientific observations. From this surviving body of material came the large quarto edition of 1797; the following year, Plassan issued it in a more convenient format, but with another, very practical concern in mind - protecting his edition against counterfeits. His autograph signature thus became, copy by copy, the mark of authenticity.

For nearly forty years, the book remained the only true return from the voyage. It was not until 1826-1827 that Peter Dillon traced the wrecks to Vanikoro; Dumont d’Urville confirmed the site in 1828. Between the silence that followed Botany Bay and the discovery of the wreckage, the volumes published in Paris alone carried the memory of the expedition.

The ships never came back; their papers already had. In this copy, Plassan’s signature adds one final material link to that chain of transmission, from the saved journal to the book authenticated by its printer.