"A Voyage to the Isle of France, the Isle of Bourbon, and the Cape of Good Hope; with Observations and Reflections on Nature of Mankind. To which is added some account of the author."
Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint Pierre was born on 19 January, 1737 and died on 21, January 1814. He was a well known French literary character who first published this book in French in 1773. The first English translation was published in 1775 under the title "A Voyage to the Island of Mauritius...etc." This translation, published in 1800, is a new and re-worked version of the 1775 edition.
xxiv preliminary pages + 334 text pages.
'This work was written by the author of the well-known romance "Paul and Virginia" [first rendered into English by Helen Maria Williams] and is an account of the travels and voyages of Saint-Pierre from 1768 - 1771. In the latter part of 1771 the author visited Cape Town (on his homeward voyage) where he was entertained by "Monsieur Tolbac" (Governor Tulbagh), whom he describes as an able and affable man of eighty years of age. There is a somewhat pleasing account of the Cape Colony and its inhabitants, who are represented as being "a pensive set of people, who chuse (sic) rather to feel - than to converse or to argue. Perhaps the want of subject is the cause of their taciturnity." Reference is made to the paucity of the European population, and it is observed that "Holland perhaps...fears the aggrandising of this colony, preferable in every respect to the mother country."
Original full calf binding. Internally the pages are clean and text in excellent condition with bookplates on the front paste-down and front endpaper.
- Binding Condition: Very Good
- Overall Condition: Very Good
- Sold By: Rare Paper
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