[Rarebooks] fa: [VENEZUELA] TRAVELS IN PARTS OF SOUTH AMERICA - F. Depons 1806 - Folding MAPS

[ArCh]

Listed now, auctions ending Sunday, April 7. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

http://tinyurl.com/y2s4vvop

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA

F[rancois] Depons: Travels in Parts of South America, during the Years 1801, 1802, 1803, & 1804; Containing a Description of the Captain-Generalship of Carraccas, with an Account of the Laws, Commerce, and Natural Productions of that Country; as also a View of the Customs and Manners of the Spaniards and Native Indians. London: Printed for Richard Phillips, 1806. First edition; octavo (21.5 cm) in modern morocco-backed cloth with gilt-lettered spine titles, fresh endpapers, marbled page edges; 157, [3] pp.; two folding engraved maps.

First edition in English of an important early work on Venezuela. Depons, a Frenchman, lived and traveled in the region for nearly five years, a rare thing for a foreigner, since, as he explains in his preface, "from the extreme jealousy of the Spanish Government, no stranger is permitted to land, far less to reside for any length of time, in any of their foreign settlements, especially on the American continent, without an express order to that effect from the king, which it is very difficult to obtain." The Spaniards themselves, according to Depons, are so fixated on the riches to be derived from "the mines of Mexico and Peru" that they regard the region "with perfect indifference. Hence that part of South America which forms the subject of following work is very imperfectly known to Europeans." With a folding map of what is present-day Venezuela, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana, and a folding plan of Caracas.

Light wear to the binding, occasional modest toning to the contents, a few small light spots, but overall, text and maps are very clean and crisp, firmly bound. A very good or better example of a rather uncommon work: OCLC locates only three copies (U of Penn, U of Liverpool, NL of Jamaica).