London: [Eliot's Court Press] for George Bishop, 1609.. [16],307pp. plus folding engraved map (9 1/4 x 19 1/4 inches). Small quarto. Modern dark green morocco, gilt boards and spine, a.e.g., gilt dentelles. Bound by Sangorski and Sutcliffe. Upper outer joint slightly tender. Bookplates of Boies Penrose on front pastedown ("Ex Libris Boies Penrose II") and front free endpaper ("Old East India House Ex Libris Boies Penrose"). Slight age-toning throughout. First leaf (blank save for a single fleuron) in facsimile, a few small repairs to titlepage and first two preliminary leaves (affecting a few letters). Repaired minor tear across lower border of map. A very good copy. The rare first English edition of this premier source for the history of Canada, published the same year as the French first edition, complete with the first contemporary and detailed map of Canada. Lescarbot was a French writer and lawyer who spent the winter of 1606-7 at Port Royal, Acadia. He gives accounts of early French voyages and discoveries in America such as those of Villegagnon to Brazil, Verrazzano, Ribaut and Laudonni? to Florida, Champlain, sieurs de Poutrincourt and de Monts, Cartier, and Roberval. Also included is much information concerning the Indian tribes, especially those of northeastern Canada, to whom the second book in this English edition is devoted. Much of the material Lescarbot collected himself, interviewing members of the early expeditions and recording his own observations and experiences. Field, in describing the first French edition, states: "His descriptions of Indian Life and peculiarities are very interesting, an account both of their fidelity, and from being among the first authentic relations, we have of them after Cartier." As with so many important works on American published in English in this era, the author, translator, and scholar Richard Hakluyt played a role in the publication of the English edition of Lescarbot. The translator Pierre Erondelle states in the introduction that Hakluyt had asked him to translate the work both to describe Canada and also "for the particular use of this nation, to the end that comparing the goodness of lands of the northern parts herein mentioned with that of Virginia, which...must be far better by reason it stands more southerly nearer to the sun; greater encouragement may be given to prosecute that generous and goodly action." Thus accounts of Canada, in Hakluyt's reckoning, would enhance the promotional materials of the Virginia Company, then being published in London. The large map, "Figure de la Terre Neuue, Grand Riviere de Canada, et C? de l'Ocean en la Novvelle France," was also issued with the first French edition, and is considered the most accurate cartographic representation of the area at the time. "The map extends up the St. Lawrence River as far as the Indian village Hochelaga, or Montreal as we know it. The first trading post in Canada, founded in 1600 at Tadousac, is shown at the mouth of the R. de Saguenay and just next to that is the River Lesquemin mistakenly named in reverse. Kebec is shown here for the first time on a printed map in its Micmac form, meaning the narrows of the river" - Burden. The rare English translation of an early significant history of Canada, with the most accurate contemporary map of the region. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 609/68. SABIN 40175. CHURCH 341. VAIL 16. HARRISSE NOUVELLE FRANCE 19. BORBA DE MORAES, pp.406-7. FIELD 916. STC 15491. SCHWARTZ & EHRENBERG, pp.88-90. BURDEN 157 (map). McCORKLE, NEW ENGLAND IN EARLY PRINTED MAPS 609.1 (map). PAYNE, RICHARD HAKLUYT, 22.
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