Paris: A Rene et Ce, 1847
8vo, xvi + 575 + 622. Half-leather hardcover bindings, gilt lettering to spines, marbled boards, 5 raised bands, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. Frontispiece, 2 folding maps and 8 lithograph plates, collated and complete. French text.
First edition of this seminal work of of exploration in Southern Africa, published 1847.
Louis Adulphe Delegorgue (1814 – 1850) was a French explorer, hunter and naturalist who travelled in southern Africa in the 1840s and wrote about the region. At the age of 16 he began to sail around Europe, northern Africa and the Antilles. At the age of 23, inspired by the writings of Le Vaillant, he sailed to the Cape of Good Hope and then travelled through southern Africa along with J.A. Wahlberg and F.C.C. Krauss aboard the Mazeppa. He made trips to southern Africa again in 1841 and in 1842, hunting and collecting artefacts for the museums in Paris and Douai. He hunted hippos, elephants, lions and buffalo and began to write about his adventures in a two volume book published in 1847. The second volume included a glossary of the Zulu language. He travelled again in 1850 to West Africa but died of malaria at sea on ship and was buried at sea. Several species have been named from the specimens he collected including the birds Columba delegorguei, Coturnix delegorguei and the bug Encosternum delegorguei. (wikipedia.com)
Condition: Good-very good. Small sections missing from marbled parts of boards of vol. 1, slight wear to corners of boards, some chipping to tops of spines, especially to vol. 2. Minor bumping to corners of boards. Previous owner’s bookplates fixed to front pastedowns, staining to top of frontispiece. Small stain to top corners of the plates in vol. 1, and to top edge of fold-out map. Plates and map in vol. 2 are all clean. Text is clean throughout the 2 volumes, only a few minor spots of foxing to a couple of pages. Both volumes are solidly bound.
- Overall Condition: Good-Very Good
- Size: 8vo
