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Francois Pyrard de Laval : Voyage de Francois Pyrard, de Laval, Contenant sa navigation aux Indes Orientales, Maldives, Moluques, & au Bresil : & les divers accidens qui luy sont arrivez en ce Voyage pendant son sejour de dix ans dans ces Pais. Avec une description exacte des Moeurs, Loix, Facons de faire, Police & Gouvernement; du Trafic & Compagnie qui s y fait; des Animaux, Arbres, Fruits, & autres singularitez qui s y rencontrent. / Divise en trois parties. / Nouvelle edition, reveue, corrigee & augmentee de divers Traitez & Relations curieuses. / par le Sieur Du Val, Geographe ordinaire du Roy

Louis Billaine, Paris, c. 1679

Expertly rebound in ¼ brown calf with marble boards, spine in six compartments of raised bands, red labels on two and four, all edges speckled red, endpapers renewed. , The title, the first three leaves, and the final leaves have been skilfully reinforced. Part 1, pages 75 to 87 have mild browning in the centre of the leaves; there is also some period marginalia in part 2 on page 161. Mispaginations include a misleading jump from 192 to 197 in part 1 which does not affect the text, as verified in Sabin; another noticeable incidence is in part 2, where p. 115 is paginated as 11, again with no alteration to the text. This book lacks the first leaf of the table of contents, as well as the first 3 leaves of the index. Otherwise, generally in very good condition, text is clean., 4to, P. 2 ff., title, blank, map, blank, au lecteur (2), contents (4), 1-192, 197-327, 1-218, 1-144, (17), 2 ff., With the engraved map of Asia by Du Val, 7 headpieces, 4 tailpieces, and 5 initials., Volume : Three parts in one.

“Pyrard’s travels covered the years between 1601 and 1611, and have crowded into them a welter of shipwrecks, imprisonments, and other adventures such as seldom falls to a man without leaving him permanently scarred. He sailed out on the Corbin, one of the two ships fitted out by some French merchants in a belated endeavour to open up trade relations with the East. The ship was wrecked on one of the Maldive Islands and the crew imprisoned. Pyrard, who quickly learned the language of the natives, was taken into favour by the king, who kept the Frenchman by him until five years later when the place was raided by a hostile group from Chittagong, India, and Pyrard, with his three companions, were carried off to the latter place. He then travelled to the Malabar Coast, where he was for a time a prisoner to the Portuguese, who sent him on some expeditions to the Moluccas. Along with other foreign residents he was shipped to Europe on some Portuguese vessels and was wrecked again, this time on the coast of Brazil[, in Bahia]. But Europe saw him safe at home at last. His first-hand experiences and acquaintance with various parts of the mainland of India and the islands of the Archipelago make his record a valuable repository of geographical and historical knowledge of the East. Especially has it been commended for his account of the Maldive Islands, which almost up to the present day have been a Terra Incognita.” (Cox)

In addition to being an invaluable source of information with regards to the Maldives, it also is the earliest (surviving) account of a Brazilian city (Bahia in 1610; Hill). There is great uncertainty as to the true author of the work. Although it is certain that Pyrard did indeed carry out the travels depicted, both Sabin and Brunet point out the division among scholars with regards to the authorship of this famous account: Huet claims that its author is Pierre Bergeron, who based it off of Pyrard’s written accounts; the Abbot Pérau, however, attributes it to Jérôme Bignon. Regardless, this Paris 1679 edition is universally acclaimed as an improvement to the earlier Paris 1619 edition for the invaluable contributions of DuVal.

, Brunet III:880-881; Sabin 66882; Graesse 5:515; Cox 1:290; Hill 1405 (later edition).

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