Mission Pavie. Indo-Chine 1879-1895. Ouvrage publié sous les auspices du ministère des Affaires étrangères, du ministère des Colonies et du ministère de l'Instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts

Complete first edition, in eleven bound volumes (ten text volumes and one atlas) of Auguste Pavie’s monumental work on former French Indochina, enriched with an autograph inscription signed by the author and accompanied by the large map of the Mission.

Published in Paris by Ernest Leroux, with the assistance of Augustin Challamel for the Atlas, between 1898 and 1919, the work appeared under the auspices of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Colonies, Public Instruction, and Fine Arts.

The set comprises the section Géographie et voyages, volumes I to VII, published between 1901 and 1919, illustrated with 52 maps and portraits hors texte, including 40 in colour; the section Études diverses. Littérature, Histoire, Histoire naturelle, volumes I to III, published between 1898 and 1904, illustrated with 43 plates and maps hors texte, including 35 in colour; and the Atlas. Notices et Cartes, published in 1903, comprising 10 colour maps.

Nine of the eleven volumes are bound in contemporary green half cloth over corners, with smooth spines, stained and faded, red shagreen title-pieces - some with small losses - red chequered paper boards, grey paper pastedowns and endpapers. The wrappers have been preserved, with a few corner losses and a restored wrapper to volume III. Volumes III and VII have been bound later in green half cloth over corners, in imitation of the other nine volumes.

Precious autograph inscription signed by Auguste Pavie on the half-title of volume VI: “A l’ami Vitoux, hommage affectueux. A. Pavie.”

This volume, published in 1911, recounts the passage from the Mekong to Tonkin in 1887 and 1888, one of the decisive stages in the Laotian explorations of the Mission. Included with this set is the large Carte de l’Indo-Chine dressée par MM. les capitaines Cupet, Friquegnon et de Malglaive, membres de la Mission Pavie, engraved by Poulmaire and printed in Paris by Augustin Challamel in 1893. This in-plano map, folded and linen-backed, shows a few foxing spots. It is preserved in a green half-cloth folder over corners, made in imitation of the text volumes, with a red shagreen title-piece and red paper boards, the whole housed in a modern red full-card slipcase.

An explorer of Cambodia and Laos and one of the architects of French expansion in Indochina, Auguste Pavie (1847-1925) occupies a privileged place among the pioneers who explored this region. Having joined the army at the age of seventeen, he went to Cochinchina with the naval infantry before entering the telegraph service, which led him to travel throughout Cambodia and Siam. Appointed French vice-consul at Luang Prabang in the late 1880s, he conducted, until 1895, a series of reconnaissance missions which, with the support of some forty civilian and military collaborators - among them Captains Cupet, Friquegnon and de Malglaive, authors of the accompanying map - helped to establish the borders of French Indochina with China, Siam and Burma over nearly 600,000 km².

On his return to France, Pavie devoted the rest of his life to the publication of this documentary summa. More than a mere account of exploration, the Mission Pavie forms a veritable printed geographical service: geography, history, literature, natural history and folklore are brought together, volume after volume, to compose one of the great scholarly monuments of French colonial expansion in Asia (after Numa Broc, Dictionnaire illustré des explorateurs français du XIXe siècle, Asie, pp. 366-368).

Uncommon gathering of the complete eleven volumes of the Mission Pavie, enhanced by an autograph inscription from the author and accompanied by its large original map. A set all the more desirable for bringing together, in a single material continuity, the account, the science and the map - in other words, the adventure, its treasures, and its memory.

Detailed collation: Geography and Travels: 1) 1901. 4 ll. (incl. portrait of Pavie), 332 pp., 1 l. for map index, 14 numbered color maps (loose), 4 black-and-white maps (1 loose, 3 in text), numerous in-text illustrations. 2) 1906. 3 ll., 402 pp., 1 l. for map index, 8 black-and-white maps (1 loose, 7 in text), numerous in-text illustrations. 3) 1900. 4 ll., 428 pp., 15 numbered color maps (loose) and 1 black-and-white map (loose), 1 portrait (loose), numerous in-text illustrations. 4) 1902. 4 ll., pp. [ix]–xxvii, 296 pp., 1 l. for map index, 8 numbered color maps (loose), 5 black-and-white maps (4 loose, 1 in text), numerous in-text illustrations. 5) 1902. Portrait of the author, 4 ll., pp. [xi]–xlvii, 1 blank l., 326 pp., 1 l. for contents, 3 numbered color maps (loose), 5 black-and-white maps (in text), numerous in-text illustrations. 6) 1911. 4 ll. (incl. 1 black-and-white map), 348 pp., 2 ll. for index, 3 black-and-white maps (in text), numerous in-text illustrations; inscribed by Pavie "A l'ami Vitoux, hommage affectueux." 7) 1919. 2 ll., 376 pp., 2 ll. for index, 3 black-and-white maps (2 loose, 1 in text), numerous in-text illustrations. Miscellaneous Studies: 1) 1898. 4 ll., pp. [v]–xlvi, 367 pp., 1 l. for contents, 1 color map (loose) and 20 color plates (loose), numerous in-text illustrations. 2) 1898. 4 ll., pp. [v]–xlv, 1 l., 494 pp. (misnumbered 449), 1 color map (loose) and 70 plates of inscriptions (in text). 3) 1904. 2 ll., pp. [v]–xxi, 549 pp., 1 l. (printer's mark and address), 1 black-and-white map (loose), 13 color plates (loose), 16 black-and-white plates (loose), 9 plates (in text), numerous in-text illustrations. Atlas. Notices and Maps: 1903. 4 ll., pp. [9]–54, 10 color maps (loose).