[Rarebooks] fa: LAFOND - VOYAGES AUTOUR DU MONDE - 8 vols/1844 - HAND-COLORED PLATES

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, January 27. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/adtanff

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.

Gabriel Lafond de Lurcy: Voyages Autour du Monde et Naufrages Célébres. Paris: Administration de Librairie, 1844. Eight volumes bound in four; large 8vos (25 x 16 cm); quarter leather over forest green embossed cloth, spines ornately decorated in gilt; 422, 432, 430, 423, 432, 423, 412, 440 pp.; with the half-titles, 45 black& white engraved plates, 35 hand-colored plates heightened in gum arabic, 8 title-page vignettes.

Monumental and vividly illustrated collection of travels, voyages, shipwrecks and adventures. VOLS. I-II: Voyages dans l'Amérique Espagnole pendant les Guerres de l'Indépendence [Travels in Latin America during the Wars of Independence]; VOLS. III-V: Mers du Sud, de la Chine, et Archipels de l'Inde [South Seas, China and East Indies]; VOLS. VI-VIII: Naufrages Célèbres [Famous shipwrecks; with accounts of travels to and within Madagascar, Arabia and North Africa, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa, the Philippines, etc.]. The author, Gabriel  Lafond de Lurcy, knew whereof he wrote; a former captain in the French merchant marine, he traveled extensively in the Far East and afterwards lived in Mexico, Peru and Chile during the Wars of Independence.

Spines professionally repaired/restored (one spine with a section of modern leather substituted for part of the original); bump/dent to the bottom of one board and to the corner of another; modest wear to the edges of the boards; contents with intermittent foxing as usual, most noticeable on the text leaves; mild toning to a few plates; otherwise clean and sound and firmly bound, the engravings crisp, the hand-coloring bright and fresh.