DRAKE, Sir Francis.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Le voyage de l'illustre seigneur et chevalier François Drach admiral d'Angleterre, alentour du monde, Rare first edition in French of "The Famous Voyage of Sir Francis Drake into the South Sea", the first published account of Drake's 1577-80 circumnavigation. The English-language text was included as a six-leaf insert in the 1589 first edition of Hakluyt's voyages.The "Famous Voyage" is often attributed to Francis Petty, who sailed with Cavendish in 1586-88 and wrote a narrative of the expedition, but another possibility is that the text was assembled from several sources by Hakluyt himself. Several translations into European languages appeared in the early 17th century; this French edition, translated by the historian François de Louvencourt (1569-1638), "is the most complete translation of all" (Wagner, p. 240). Although the "Famous Voyage" was updated for Hakluyt's second edition (1598-1600), de Louvencourt worked with the 1589 text, adding only some explanations for French readers. Second and third editions followed in 1627 and 1641.Auction records show only one other copy in postwar commerce, sold at Sotheby Parke Bernet in 1979. That copy came with an engraved world map by Nicolas van Sype, printed on paper watermarked with the year 1600. The map is not called for by Quinn and other bibliographies.

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