Voyage de Decouvertes aux Terres Australes execute par ordre de Sa Majeste l'Empereur et Roi, sur les corvettes Le Geographe, Le Naturaliste, et la goelette Le Casuarina, pendant les Annees 1800, 1801, 1802, 1803 et 1804. 3 vols.

This is a rare book from the Berkelouw Rare Books Department.

2 vols text (4to) plus Atlas in 2 parts (small folio). Paris: l'Imprimerie Imperiale, 1807-1811. Uniformly bound in original full calf with blind-stamped borders on all covers. Spines blind embossed with raised bands and gilt titled. Inside dentelles. Top edges gilt, other edges uncut. Marbled endpapers. Hinges strengthened. Comprising 2 vols text complete with portrait frontispiece and 2 folding tables, errata leaf and half-titles to both volumes; And two-part Atlas containing two engraved title-pages one with engrv. vignette, 54 engraved charts, views, plates, etc. of which 23 are magnificently hand-coloured including some folding and the 4pp. list of plates in Part II. Occasional foxing / soiling especially in Atlas. 1st edition. Ferguson 449; Hill pp. 229-230. NOTE: The second volume of the text was completed by Freycinet and published in 1816 after Peron, the naturalist, had died. The plates in the atlas, especially the coloured ones, have become quite famous as they are often reproduced; the map of Australia is one of the most beautiful and famous of all maps depicting the continent. The official account of the Baudin-Freycinet Voyage. In 1800 an expedition organised by the Institute of France and placed under the command of Nicholas Baudin sailed for the South Seas, with particular instructions to make full and minute examination of the Australian coasts and especially to explore the southern coast 'where there is supposed to be a strait communicating with the Gulf of Carpentaria and which consequently would divide New Holland into two large and almost equal islands'. This celebrated French expedition made extensive visits to Western Australia, Tasmania and Sydney depicting the whole as 'Terre Napoleon', at that time not colonised by the British.