[Brosses, Charles de]:

$8,500 · Offered by William Reese Company

HISTOIRE DES NAVIGATIONS AUX TERRES AUSTRALES.... A fundamentally important work on early exploration and discovery in the Pacific. Charles de Brosses was president of the Burgundian Parlement and a shareholder in the French India Company. His work is the first collection of voyages to deal exclusively with the Pacific and was intended to spur French commercial activity and colonization in the region. Brosses includes a long essay on the advantages to be gained from discoveries and an actual plan for a voyage and settlement. His ideas influenced Bougainville on the French navigator's Pacific explorations and colonization of the Falklands. Captain Cook took a copy of Brosses' work with him on his first voyage, which is ironic because part of the author's aim was to preempt and challenge British exploration in the Pacific. John Callander largely copied Brosses' work for his TERRA AUSTRALIS COGNITA (1768). Brosses coined several important terms in this work, including "Australasia" and "Polynesia," although the idea of calling the southeastern Pacific "Magellanica" has not survived."This is an extremely important and thorough collection of voyages, and one of the outstanding works relating to the early history of Australasia. It contains an account of all voyages, beginning with the second expedition of Vespucci in 1502 and ending in 1747, in which navigators touched upon the supposed southern continent of Magellanica, which is now represented by Australia and some scattered isl

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.