VOYAGE DE FRANCOIS PYRARD, DE LAVAL, CONTENANT SA NAVIGATION AUX INDES ORIENTALES, MALDIVES, MOLUQUES, & AU BRESIL...Nouvelle edition, reveuë, corrigée & augmentée...par le Sieur Du Val, Geographe ordinaire du Roy.
Pyrard de Laval, François:
Paris: Chez Louis Billaine, 1679. [10],327,[1]; 218; 144,[23]pp. plus folding engraved map. Quarto. Contemporary calf, expertly rebacked preserving the original gilt spine, raised bands. Corners expertly repaired. Armorial bookplate on front pastedown. A few leaves browned, generally quite crisp and clean internally. A very good copy. The best edition, described by Sabin as "the most complete edition, with important additions by Du Val," of this early account of commercial travel to the East Indies and Brazil. First published under a slightly different title in 1611, also in Paris. Pyrard de Laval (1570-1621) began his voyage in 1601 in search of adventure and to open up trade with the East. He sailed out to the Orient on the Corbin, accompanied by another ship. The Corbin sank near the Maldive Islands and Pyrard de Laval was captured by the natives, spending five years as a slave. He was later released by the king of Bengal, who took him to India. There he travelled through Hindustan to Cochin, where the Portuguese thought he was a spy and put him in prison. They sent him to Goa, where he languished under arrest until a French Jesuit interceded for him. He then took part in many Portuguese expeditions (to Ceylon, Java, etc.) and finally managed to board a Portuguese ship sailing for Europe, but because of very bad weather they were forced to put in at Bahia, Brazil, where the ship ran aground and had to be abandoned. There Pyrard de Laval stayed for two months until he found a ship to France, arriving back in 1611, ten years after his departure. The folding map, which outlines his route, shows Africa, India, China, and the East Indies, with insets of India and the Maldives. "[Pyrard's] first-hand experiences and acquaintance with various parts of India and the islands of its western archipelago made his record a valuable repository of geographical and historical knowledge of the East, especially of the Maldive Islands, which had been largely unknown to Europeans before then" - Hill. Pyrard's account of the two months he spent in Bahia in 1610 is the oldest surviving account of life in a Brazilian city. He describes offshore whaling, sugar mills, smuggling, and other aspects of life there. BORBA DE MORAES, p.694. SABIN 66882. HILL 1405 (later ed). BELL P608. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 679/105. HOWGEGO P168.
(Item ID: WRCAM38495) $7,500.00