ARAGO François Promenade autour du monde, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820, sur les corvettes du roi l’Uranie et la Physicienne, commandées par M. Freycinet.

Ferguson, 850 ; Forbes, Hawaïan National bibliography, 537 (“atlas frequently lacking”); Chadenat, 6 ; Hill, 28; Sabin, 1867 ; Brunet, I, 372.

First edition, first issue (with the title pages dated, the atlas complete with title-page en index leaf) of this important relation of the circumnavigation by Freycinet with notes on Hawaii, Australia, and the Sandwich Islands.

“An informal account by the official artist of the Freycinet voyage to the Pacific, 1817-1820, written in the form of letters to a friend and deliberately omitting the ‘eternal repetition of winds, currents, longitude and latitude’. The Hawaiian portion of the text, contained on more than 150 pages, records impressions of the artists’ stops on Hawaii, Maui, and Oahu. Extensive portions of the text also record Arago’s impressions of Australia, Guam, and the Marianas Islands. The artist’s main interest (as reflected by the plate subjects) are of peoples encountered. Several of the plates record somewhat gruesome aspects of Hawaiian culture” (Forbes).

The 26 plates of the atlas include a world map, a view of the church of La Gloria (Rio de Janeiro), depictions of anthropophagi, the King and Queen of the Carolinas, a depiction of a tiger hunt, as well as details on Hawaii, the Sandwich Islands and Australia (plates 16 to 24).

Small waterstain at the beginning of text volume I, else a fine and complete copy of the first issue.