Voyage autour du monde entrepris par ordre du gouvernement sur la corvette La Coquille

Belgian first edition, published the same year as the French edition; and illustrated with 4 lithographs.
Contemporary half glazed camel calf binding. Spine with flat false bands decorated with 3 blind-stamped fleurons, with roulettes on the bands and blind fillets. Chocolate shagreen title and volume labels.
By deliberate aesthetic choice and to correspond to the binding in two volumes, only two title pages have been retained, volume I and volume II, each at the beginning of each volume, thus in the volumes, the chapters follow without transition; chapter VIII following chapter VII from the end of the first volume...
Handsome copy, very fresh.
This scientific circumnavigation commanded by Duperrey took place from 1822 to 1825, it mainly concerns Oceania, although the first volume focuses on Brazil, the Malvinas Islands and Peru; the other three deal with Tahiti, Bora Bora, New Ireland and New South Wales, New Zealand, Sandwich Islands, Australia, Mauritius... Lesson was the naturalist and the ship's pharmacist physician, responsible for recording and collecting specimens and samples; he would be the first to give a description of birds of paradise. Apart from a chapter in the voyages of Dumont Durville who was an officer on La Coquille, this is the only account we have of this voyage around the world by Duperrey. The work is very rich in detailed information both on the customs of the different peoples visited, and on the fauna and flora, Lesson's perspective being essentially scientific. A vocabulary of the language of New Zealand.