Voyage de La Perouse autour du monde

First octavo edition, the second issue following the original quarto published in 1797. Without the atlas. At the end of volume III, tables (68 leaves) of the routes of the Astrolabe and the Boussole.
Contemporary full mottled calf binding. Smooth spine decorated in a grotesque style with lozenges, with roll tooling at head and tail framing the title label. Title and volume labels in black Russia leather. Decorative roll border to the covers. Small loss at the head of volume I, and another at the head of volume IV. Narrow split at the head of volume IV along the upper joint, and at the lower joint of volume I. Upper joints of volumes I and III slightly sunken and somewhat rubbed. Scattered foxing. Small loss of paper at the lower corner of the last two leaves of volume I. Marginal restoration to the title page of volume II (approx. 2 cm). A good copy, an attractive set.

In 1784, Louis XVI and the Minister of the Navy conceived an expedition around the world to complete the unfinished discoveries of James Cook in the Pacific Ocean, and chose La Pérouse to command this circumnavigation with two frigates, La Boussole and the Astrolabe (Louis XVI himself drew the route of the voyage). From 1788 onward, no further news was received from La Pérouse, who in fact had been shipwrecked (this would only be discovered much later, in 1826) near the Santa Cruz archipelago in mid-June 1788. From the time of his departure, La Pérouse and the scientists accompanying him regularly sent journals and reports back to France; these documents formed the basis for Milet-Mureau’s account of the complete voyage. After rounding Cape Horn without incident, La Pérouse called at Easter Island, then the Sandwich Islands; the ships then sailed down the west coast of America, making numerous observations. From Monterey in California, he crossed the Pacific to Macao in China, then to Manila, before heading north to Kamchatka. After stopping at many Pacific islands, La Pérouse put in at Botany Bay in Australia. Together with the voyages of Cook and Vancouver, this expedition ranks among the three great explorations of the Pacific.
In addition to La Pérouse’s narrative and the memoirs of various scientists (on botany, volcanoes, shells, fauna, Easter Island, etc.), Milet-Mureau added numerous relevant documents, such as the inventory of goods loaded aboard the ship.