Beschreibung:

SCHOUTEN, Willem Corneliszoon (1567-1625). Journal ou Relation exacte du voyage dans les Indes: Par un nouveau destroit, & par les grandes Mers Australes qu’il a descouvert, vers le Pole Antartique . Paris: Martin Gobert (text) and Melchior Tavernier (maps), 1618. Third French translation of Schouten’s popular account of his circumnavigation with Jacob Le Maire in search of the unknown southern continent. Among the expedition’s cartographic contributions were the discovery of a new strait off Tierra del Fuego, named after Le Maire, and charting parts of the coastline of New Guinea . This Paris edition follows the French translation printed at Amsterdam the same year, but ‘with alterations and improvements in the text’ (Sabin) and the plates in slightly smaller versions. Schouten’s landmark voyage was only the third circumnavigation, ‘during which Cape Horn [named after Schouten’s hometown of Hoorn] was discovered and rounded for the first time’ (Hill). Sabin 77952 (recording the dedication as signed ‘M.G.’, whereas here it is signed ‘M. Tavernier’); Shirley World 299. Octavo (161 x 97mm). 8 folding engraved plates: double-hemisphere map with portraits of Magellan, Schouten, and others, 3 sea charts, and 4 views (without the first blank leaf as usual, third map just shaved at lower edge, map of New Guinea slightly weak at fold, section of title fore-edge replaced, occasional tiny marginal wormtrack or faint stain). Modern binding of old flexible vellum, spine lettered.