LABILLARDIÈRE, Jacques Julien Houton de (1755-1834). Relation du Voyage à la recherche de La Pérouse, fait par ordre de l'Assemblée Constituante, pendant les années 1791, 1792, et pendnt la 1re et la 2e anné de la République françoise. Paris: H.J....

LABILLARDIÈRE, Jacques Julien Houton de (1755-1834). Relation du Voyage à la recherche de La Pérouse, fait par ordre de l'Assemblée Constituante, pendant les années 1791, 1792, et pendnt la 1re et la 2e anné de la République françoise. Paris: H.J. Jansen, An VIII [1799-1800].

The search for La Pérouse, two years after his disappearance, was undertaken by Admiral Joseph-Antoine Bruni d'Entrecasteaux on aboard the Recherche, and Huon de Kermadec on the Espérance. The voyage, which took them on the first circumnavigation of Australia, was fortunate in having the eminent botanist Labillardière among its savants, and also the leading French hydrographer Charles-François Beautemps-Beaupré whose maps, particularly of Tasmania, 'set a new high standard' (D. Hill). However it suffered from a dual purpose. In addition to hunting for La Pérouse, d'Entrecasteaux was instructed to chart the still unknown south coast of Australia. A report of natives wearing French naval uniform, being seen near the Admiralty Islands north of New Guinea, made him head in that direction from the Cape of Good Hope. But contrary winds forced him to take the long route via Van Diemen's Land, where the expedition spent five weeks before sailing north along the east coast of Australia. Finding no evidence of a wreck, the ships then sailed on to the Dutch settlement at Amboina. After a four months refit in the tropics and an infestation of cockroaches, they returned to Cape Leeuwin to begin their survey of the south Australian coastline. Shortage of water preventing completion of this, they returned straight to Van Diemen's Land, staying thirty-eight days and making a first prolonged contact with the indigenous people for an estimated 10,000 years (Mulvaney p. 73). The social interchanges were carefully recorded by the expedition artist, Jean Piron (see plates 4-5). Resuming the search for La Pérouse, the French ships went north to New Zealand, the Friendly Islands (Tonga) and New Caledonia, passing within 60 kilometres of Recherche Island (later renamed Vanikoro in the Solomon Islands), where he had been fatally wrecked. Scurvy, dysentery, and news of the war between republican France and Holland eventually brought the search and the survey work to an end; several of the expedition's mainly royalist officers died. Labilladière, a Republican, was able to retain his journal, but must have been unhappy when the English navy carried away ninety cases of documents and specimens; thanks to Joseph Banks, these were eventually returned. Labilladière's Relation du Voyage, the first statement by the d'Entrecasteaux expedition, was published simultaneously in quarto and octavo, to be followed by his description of the flora of Australia 1804-07, and the Voyage de Dentrecasteaux in 1807-08. Fine copy, text with wide margins, uniformly bound in contemporary French marbled calf. Brunet III, 711; David Hill, The Great Race, Sydney: 2012, pp.89-107; Ferguson I, 307; Hill 954: ‘the fine atlas volume is much prized’; Howgego E26; John Mulvaney, 'The Axe had Never Sounded', Canberra: 2007, pp.1-85; Nissen ZBI 2331; Sabin 38420; Wantrup 132.

2 text volumes, quarto (281 x 205mm) and folio atlas (540 x 4387mm). Atlas with engraved title, double-page route map of the Indian Ocean and South Pacific by Barbié du Bocage, 43 plates numbered 2-44 engraved by Copia after drawings by J. Piron, the 14 botanical plates prepared by Redouté (generally light spotting to plate margins, light crinkling and occasional browning to text leaves). Contemporary French marbled calf, smooth gilt spines, red edges. Provenance: Girolamo Durazzo (armorial bookplate below half titles).

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