Catalogue of Papers of Louis Antoine de Bougainville, F.R.S. (1729-1811), relating to the Seven Years' War in Canada, the foundation of the first colony on the Faulkland Islands, his voyage round the world and the American War for Independence. [ Sotheby & Co., auction catalogue, sale date: 24 June 1957 ].

Descripción

Yellow printed wrappers, small 4to, 45 pp 50 lots. From the preface: "The remarkable collection catalogued below consists of papers which Bougainville himself assembled towards the end of his life, in the hope that they might be used by his friend Delambre as the basis of a biographical study. For some reason this project was never realised, with the result that the collection has remained to this day largely unpublished. It seems that at this period, probably during his solitary retirement after the death of his wife in 1806, Bougainville sorted through the copious mass of documents which he had gathered in the course of his long and active career, destroying those of a purely personal or family interest, and preserving only those of obvious historical importance. Bougainville is remembered today chiefly for his celebrated voyage round the world, the first to be accomplished by a Frenchman, but he also played a distinguished rôle in other spheres - as a soldier under Montcalm in the disastrous war which resulted in the loss of Canada to France, as the founder of the first colony on the Falkland Islands, and as a naval commander under Admirals D'Estaing and De Grasse in the American War of Independence. Nor were his attainments of an exclusively professional kind: he was also, in accordance with the humane tradition of his age, a man of liberal culture - a member of the Royal Society of London, a friend of the encyclopédistes, well read in the classics and belles lettres, and master himself of a fluent and graceful prose style, enlivened with a delightful humour. Three of Bougainville's personal Journals, indeed, each a document of quite exceptional interest, form the outstanding feature of the present collection (lots 25, 32 and 38). A minor accomplishment of Bougainville's, and a pleasing feature of the collection, is his consistently elegant script: it is of particular interest in this connection that he engrossed on parchment with his own hand the six Actes de Prise de Possession dating from his voyage round the world (lot 28)." A few pencil marks, otherwise Good. List of prices realized and buyers' names laid in (darkened at top). N° de ref. del artículo ABE-49266

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