Földvári Books

Paris: Jacques Langlois et Emmanuel Langlois, 1654. First edition. Complete, with the three folding maps. With several woodcut head and tailpieces, and initials. In somewhat later leather. The gilt spine is with five raised bands and red title vignette. Front and rear panels ruled with gilt double-line at the edges. With marbled endpapers. Marbled edges. (16), 481, (11) p. and 3 folding plates of engraved maps. 18th-century ownership inscription on title page, and on front and rear endpapers (“Quinot”, “Megard”). A humble note on title page, and notes on rear endpaper. The paper of some quires is toned, browned due to aging. Sporadic foxing and stains throughout. Some pages with water stain, the last quires affected more. The plates are in fine condition, the maps of Guadeloupe and Martinique slightly over trimmed, but it only effects the upper neatlines. The binding is rubbed. With a small hole at the head of the spine. Front panel and tail of spine damaged at joint, but still firm. Overall in very good condition.

The first French account on the Caribbean, a complete copy with the three folding maps, among them the oldest map of Saint Christopher Island.

The first French book on the French Antilles, written by Jean Baptiste Du Tertre, “born in Calais in 1610, Du Tertre served in the Dutch army and navy before being ordained as a Dominican in 1635” (Garraway, 2005). He “arrived in Guadeloupe in 1640 and remained for seven years, ultimately becoming the superior of the colony’s Dominican mission. A decade later (1656–57) he returned for a shorter, second visit. His first account of his experiences and of the French settlements in the Antilles was published in 1654 under the title Histoire generale, des isles des Christophe, de la Guadeloupe, de la Martinique (General History of the Islands of St. Christophe, Guadeloupe, and Martinique). A revised and expanded version of this work, titled General History of the Antilles, was published in 1667– 71” (Dobie, 2010). According to Rich, Du Tertre was forced to publish the original 1654 edition before the work was complete: “The first edition of Father Du Tertre’s History of the Antilles, or rather the project of that work, which the Rev. Father was obliged to put to press in haste, because he understood that some other person was about printing it under some other name, thereby depriving him of the credit of it.”

The book is illustrated with three maps of the islands of Guadeloupe, Martinique and of Saint Christopher which is the first map of the island ever printed (Dunn, 1972).

Sabin 21457.; Leclerc 2133.; Palau 330768.; Rich 299.

[Bibl.: Garraway, D. L.: The Libertine Colony. Creolization In the Early French Caribbean. Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. pp. 50– 58.; Dobie, M: Trading Places. Colonization and Slavery In Eighteenth-Century French Culture. Ithaca, N.Y.; London: Cornell University Press, 2010. pp. 132–136.; Dunn, R. S.: Sugar and Slaves. The Rise Of the Planter Class In the English West Indies, 1624–1713. p. 31.]

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Price: €11,500.00