Relation de deux voyages dans les mers australes & des Indes, faits en 1771, 1772, 1773 & 1774 (...). Ou extrait du Journal de la navigation pour la découverte des terres australes, & pour la vérification d'une nouvelle route proposée pour abréger d'environ huit cent lieues la traversée d'Europe à la Chine

Paris, Knapen & Fils, 1782. Octavo, viii, 244 pages and 2 unnumbered leaves of approbation and privilege.

First edition, illustrated with a large folding map entitled "Terres Australes ou partie septentrionale de l'Isle de Kerguelen", surrounded by eight coastal views and profiles. The volume contains the accounts of Kerguelen's two expeditions to the southern seas between 1771 and 1774, a memoir on Madagascar on pages 154-169, and "Observations on the War in America" on pages 121-133. Cf. Sabin, 37618.

Contemporary full mottled tan calf, smooth spine decorated with gilt rat-tooth rolls and floral tools, red calf lettering-piece with a small loss at the foot, boards framed with blind fillets, gilt fillets to the board edges partly faded, red edges. Spine skilfully renewed in period style. Joints rubbed. A few minor spots of foxing, pale dampstaining at the head of the final leaves, small loss from the upper corner of leaves 241-242, not affecting the text.

Within the space of a few years, Kerguelen's career underwent a dramatic reversal. Sailing in May 1771 aboard the Berryer, he reached the Isle de France before continuing south in the Fortune and the Gros-Ventre. In February 1772 he sighted the land that he named France australe, subsequently identified as the archipelago now bearing his name. His return to France was greeted with enthusiasm and earned him promotion to captain.

The second expedition, which sailed in 1773 with the Roland and the Oiseau, was intended to confirm the extent and supposed resources of this newly discovered territory. Severe weather, navigational difficulties and the desolation of the coastline dispelled hopes that it formed part of a vast southern continent. After an incomplete survey and a call at Madagascar, Kerguelen returned to Brest in September 1774.

His return was followed not by renewed acclaim, but by a court martial. Accused of a series of disciplinary and criminal offences committed during the expedition, Kerguelen was convicted at Brest on 15 May 1775, dismissed from the Navy and imprisoned at Saumur. Released in August 1778, he almost immediately returned to sea, fitting out the Comtesse de Brionne at Rochefort and taking part in the maritime war against Britain.

Published four years after his release, the Relation de deux voyages dans les mers Australes & des Indes is therefore more than an account of exploration. It is also the belated response of a disgraced officer determined to reclaim his own history and submit his conduct to the judgment of his readers.

This purpose is apparent from the opening dedication "To the Fatherland". Beneath the form of a tribute to the nation, Kerguelen returns in barely veiled terms to his trial, declaring that he had been "persecuted after several years of service" and "sacrificed to envy and politics". The maritime narrative thus becomes a plea in his own defence: the map, navigational journals and geographical observations are intended to establish the reality of his achievements, while the text seeks to overturn the judgment that had destroyed his career.

This freedom of expression prompted a further intervention by the authorities. By an order of the Conseil d'État dated 23 May 1783, the King suppressed the book. The suppression and royal seizure are firmly documented, although it remains difficult to determine how many copies were actually withdrawn from circulation or destroyed. The order nevertheless accounts, at least in part, for the present rarity of the edition.

Beyond its personal and polemical purpose, the work preserves the full range of Kerguelen's maritime experience. The memoir on Madagascar extends the record of his voyages in the Indian Ocean, while the observations on the American war place the book within the naval and strategic concerns of the closing years of Louis XVI's reign. Above all, the large folding map and its coastal profiles provide the graphic record of the discovery that first raised Kerguelen to fame before contributing to his fall.

A handsome copy, complete with its large folding map, of this narrative of exploration transformed into an act of self-defence. Celebrated as a discoverer, condemned as an officer and finally censored as an author, Kerguelen offers not merely the journal of his voyages, but the account of a southern glory turned against the man who pursued it.