Charlevoix's Histoire...Nouvelle France...
CHARLEVOIX, Pierre Francois Xavier de (1682-1761).
Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d'un Voyage fait part ordre du Roi dans l'Amerique Septentrionnale. Par le P. De Charlevoix, de la Compagnie de Jesus.
Paris: Pierre-Francois Giffart, 1744. First duodecimo edition.
Comparables: Christie's, 2012 - $16,250
Duodecimo (6 5/16" x 3 3/4", 161mm x 95mm). Title-pages in red and black. With 28 folding engraved maps and 44 folding engraved botanical plates. Collated complete against Howes. Bound in contemporary speckled calf (rebacked). On the boards, a toothed gilt roll border surrounding a gilt fillet border. On the spine, five raised bands. Panels gilt. Title gilt to beige speckled calf in the second panel. Number gilt to green calf in the second panel. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Rebacked. Some rubbing to the extremities, with some mild soiling and skinning to the boards. Internally quite clean with only scattered mild foxing. A stub tear to some of the maps, usually quite small, but ca. 45mm to the first map in vol. I. On the title-page of each volume, "PG" stamped in ink.
After the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, ending the War of the Spanish Succession, the French dispatched Charlevoix to recommend boundaries for Acadia (present-day New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island roughly). The particular division of territory had important ramifications on trade and tribal politics. To that mission was added the Duc d'Orleans's quest for a maritime connection between the Great Lakes and the Pacific (the mythical "mer de l'Ouest"). These twin pursuits led Charlevoix through America, southward and westward along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers until he reached New Orleans in 1722. In the great Jesuit tradition, Charlevoix was careful in his work, gathering and citing primary documents and objects. The great number of his observations are first-hand, or at most second-hand. The maps are no exception; most were drawn by Nicholas Bellin, and reflect discoveries right up to 1743. The maps in the present copy are particularly well-preserved; PG and their successors in ownership clearly opened them sparingly, if at all.
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CHARLEVOIX, Pierre Francois Xavier de (1682-1761).
Histoire et description generale de la Nouvelle France, avec le journal historique d'un Voyage fait part ordre du Roi dans l'Amerique Septentrionnale. Par le P. De Charlevoix, de la Compagnie de Jesus.
Paris: Pierre-Francois Giffart, 1744. First duodecimo edition.
Comparables: Christie's, 2012 - $16,250
Duodecimo (6 5/16" x 3 3/4", 161mm x 95mm). Title-pages in red and black. With 28 folding engraved maps and 44 folding engraved botanical plates. Collated complete against Howes. Bound in contemporary speckled calf (rebacked). On the boards, a toothed gilt roll border surrounding a gilt fillet border. On the spine, five raised bands. Panels gilt. Title gilt to beige speckled calf in the second panel. Number gilt to green calf in the second panel. Gilt roll to the edges of the boards. All edges of the text-block speckled red. Rebacked. Some rubbing to the extremities, with some mild soiling and skinning to the boards. Internally quite clean with only scattered mild foxing. A stub tear to some of the maps, usually quite small, but ca. 45mm to the first map in vol. I. On the title-page of each volume, "PG" stamped in ink.
After the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, ending the War of the Spanish Succession, the French dispatched Charlevoix to recommend boundaries for Acadia (present-day New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton Island roughly). The particular division of territory had important ramifications on trade and tribal politics. To that mission was added the Duc d'Orleans's quest for a maritime connection between the Great Lakes and the Pacific (the mythical "mer de l'Ouest"). These twin pursuits led Charlevoix through America, southward and westward along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers until he reached New Orleans in 1722. In the great Jesuit tradition, Charlevoix was careful in his work, gathering and citing primary documents and objects. The great number of his observations are first-hand, or at most second-hand. The maps are no exception; most were drawn by Nicholas Bellin, and reflect discoveries right up to 1743. The maps in the present copy are particularly well-preserved; PG and their successors in ownership clearly opened them sparingly, if at all.
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