Voyage au Cap de Bonne-Esperance et Autour du Monde avec le Capitaine Cook (3 vols, 1787)

• The reference to Captain Cook applies only to Vol I; the contents of the other volumes are drawn from the author's travels in South Africa

Presented in a brown Skivertex-board case with gilt lettering to the front; each volume full-bound in brown Skivertex-boards with gilt lettering to the spines, new plain endpapers, top page-edges gilt, other edges uncut, red-and-black spine-bands and red marker ribbons:

• Vol I. Engraved frontispiece plus xxxii pp of introduction, 21-fold map of Cape of Good Hope as second frontispiece, 389 pp of text and errata; plus 2 folding plates at the back
• Vol II. Title-page and 366 pp of text and errata; plus 7 multifold plates at the back
• Vol III. Title-page and 340 pp of text, pp 341 pp of Hottentot and Caffre vocabularies, pp 347-351 of contents, pp 352-366 index of all volumes and errata, pp 367-371 pp of Privilege du Roi (colophon); plus 6 multifold plates at the back

CONDITION

• The striking feature is that all the text pp and plates remain snow white

• Our bookbinder has excelled herself: the presentation box and the binding of all three volumes are fine

• The contents, including all 16 folding maps and plates, are complete, fine, undamaged, unmarked and undiscoloured:

making this a rare near-perfect 235-year-old set, but without ownership or other provenance