Drake, Sir Francis:

$4,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

LE VOYAGE CURIEUX, FAICT AUTOUR DU MONDE, PAR FRAN ÇOIS DRACH.... The third French edition of the narrative of Drake's circumnavigation of the globe in 1577-80, originally published in the first edition of 1589 of Hakluyt's Voyages... as a supplement to the text. "The translation into French by F. de Louvencourt, Sieur de Vauchelles...the work has been ascribed to one Francis Petty, but...it was in fact compiled, probably by Hakluyt, from several briefer eyewitness accounts, one being Francis Fletcher's original narrative" - Kraus. Both the 1613 and 1627 French editions are of the greatest rarity and are virtually unobtainable. Streeter had a copy of the present edition, which was bought by Kraus at the Streeter sale and now resides with Kraus' Drake collection at the Library of Congress.This copy does not contain the map, as is the case with virtually all copies. Only seven or eight copies of the map are known. At the DuPont sale at Christie's in October 1991 a copy of the 1627 edition with the map sold for $71,500. This edition does include a portion of text not present in the earlier editions. According to Wagner, the "second part" added here is "pure fiction," an interesting example of the popular demand for Drake's exploits, as well as the subtle melding of fact and myth. It recounts Drake's supposed activities after rounding the Cape of Good Hope.This copy is bound with a 1642 edition of Las Casas' Histoire des Indes Occidentales... printed in Lyon. Not a particularly r

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