PERON, François & Louis FREYCINET

Voyage de Découvertes aux Terres Australes......

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Imprimerie Imperiale, 1807-1811-1816- Paris, 1824. Altogether two volumes quarto, text, and a largequarto atlas; text with portrait frontispiece of Peron and two folding tables; the two-part large quarto atlas bound in one volume, containing 40 plates (as always, numbered 2-41, with number 1 not appearing here but subsequently appearing as map 1 in the following map section; 21 of the plates coloured) and 14 maps (two double-page and folding) as usual; with an additional 23 plates (see below), seven of them coloured; contemporary half green morocco, corners bumped, top and bottom of atlas spine loose, armorial bookplate with motto "l'Espoire m'attire". An unusual and desirable set of the rare and important official account of the Baudin voyage to Australia and the Pacific, sent out by the French government in 1800 with orders to complete the cartographic survey of the Australian coast.

Commanded by Nicolas Baudin, the expedition left France in 1800 and sailed via Mauritius to the Australian coast in the region of Cape Leeuwin, arriving in May 1801. Péron sailed as naturalist on the expedition and Freycinet as cartographer. The vessels Géographe and Naturaliste sailed north from Cape Leeuwin. The expedition surveyed the coast and made observations on the natural history and inhabitants, until they crossed to Timor. After three months the two ships set out for Tasmania, the party continuing to make detailed surveys, and went on to Sydney. They then undertook a complete survey of the southern coast and an examination of the northern coast before returning to Mauritius where, near the end of 1803, Baudin died. It was a celebrated voyage, which brought back to France the most important collection of natural history specimens in the history of the French Museum, as well as a wealth of geographical and other information.

This copy of the official publication of the voyage takes a form which has been described in a few copies but is not often seen. It includes the so-called "general reader's set", the makeup in which the book is usually seen, which comprises the full narrative account and the Atlas Historique with its coloured plates (volumes on hydrography, which were separately published and distributed by another bookseller, do not normally form part of a set). However, to the atlas volume of this "general reader's set" have been added the extra plates published for the otherwise inferior second edition. Thus where the atlas would normally contain (as well as its 14 maps) 40 plates, 21 of them coloured, it here has 63 plates of which 30 are coloured.

The Atlas Historique in its regular form contains a series of wonderful coloured plates, some of the most beautiful of early views of Australia and fine natural history images, while the superb series of portraits of Aborigines represents the most compassionate yet honest portrayal of the displaced natives to be seen in any of the early voyage accounts. The 23 plates created especially for the second edition and added to this atlas include a further superb suite of four portraits of named Australian Aborigines, three of them coloured. These are among the best of all the images published for the Baudin voyage. The other images added for the second edition show scenes, objects and people chiefly from Timor, South Africa and Australia.

The narrative of the expedition was begun by Péron, and completed by Freycinet after Péron's death. A tacit agreement between Péron and Freycinet, both of whom disliked Baudin, kept the commander's name mostly absent from the account of the expedition. Flinders completed his survey of the Australian coast before Baudin, but his imprisonment by the French in Mauritius for seven years resulted in the French exploration account being published first. Consequently, the Baudin-Freycinet narrative includes the first complete and fully detailed map of the Australian continent. It is justly one of the most famous depictions of Australia ever produced, with virtually the entire southern coast labelled "Terre Napoléon", indicating French colonial ambitions. The map, controversial even today, is often said to have been at least partly based on Flinders' charts and papers seized by the French. It is one of the most beautiful as well as one of the most famous of all maps of Australia.

The Baudin coastal explorations are commemorated by numerous place-names along the Australian coast, especially in Tasmania and Western Australia.
Hill, 1329 (1st edition only); Wantrup, 78a, 79a (and 82 for 2nd edition).

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