[LA PEYRÈRE, Isaac de].

£4,950 · Offered by Sokol Books

First edition of the first work to deal extensively with Greenland (the edition was shared by Courb é with the bookseller Louis Billaine, also at Paris), charmingly illustrated with a map of Greenland and its environs and a folding plate representing a family of Greenlanders, a kayak and a description of a narwhal. In epistolary form addressed to La Mothe Le Vayer, this report is based on materials gathered by the author a member of the French embassy sent to Denmark from 1644 to 1646; Isaac de La Peyrère was attached to the retinue of Gaspard Coignet de La Thuilerie the French ambassador. In this work La Peyrère confined himself to the role of a compiler, taking up medieval Icelandic texts and accounts of recent voyages, such as those of Frobisher who traveled, at the end of the 16th century, in search of a passage to the kingdom of Cathay around North America. He had many of the documents he found in Denmark translated and others explained to him as he did not read Danish. La Peyrère s work forms a fascinating collection of curiosities and anecdotes, given without any real order or methodical classification, but its great merit is that it is the first book to focus on and specifically study Greenland, with chapters on its demography, trade, and history etc. The first part of the book details the first Icelandic and Danish chronicles relating to Greenland (population, fauna, etc.) and details elements of the voyages of Frobisher and Hudson. He debates at length the existence

• Binding: Hardcover

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