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A COACHING ATLAS, IN ITS ORIGINAL TRAVELLING BINDING, providing distances, departure times of coaches and other practical information for the major routes within and around the kingdom of France, allowing the planning of coach journeys from Paris to major destinations such as Bordeaux, Toulouse, Strasbourg, London and between regions, and from Amsterdam to Marseille and Strasbourg to Vienna through France.

Desnos (1725-1805) was a prominent instrument maker and globe maker as well as a prolific cartographer. His Atlas first appeared in 1764 and was several times reprinted, each time with augmentations and modifications. This edition is described as the third on title, but the Atlas had already been published more than three times ― with a prior edition of 1765 also bearing the third edition statement. It is dedicated to astronomer and cartographer César-François Cassini de Thury (1714-1784), who was made director of the Paris Observatory in 1771. The title page describes the atlas ‘Première partie’, since Desnos later issued a volume devoted to foreign roads: Nouvel Itinéraire général comprenant toutes les grandes routes et chemins de communication des provinces de France, des Iles Britanniques, de l'Espagne, du Portugal, de l’Italie, [etc].

The short article plays on Banks’s youthful reputation at Oxford, his curiosity for the natural world and his experiences in the South Seas: ‘As nature has been his constant study, it cannot be supposed that the most engaging part of it, the fair sex, have escaped his notice; and if we may be suffered to conclude from his amorous descriptions, the females of most of the countries he has visited, have undergone every critical inspection by him...’ The plate is described in BM Satires 5146.

First edition. A juvenile Cook in French, describing his voyages to the Pacific, including New Zealand, Batavia (Jakarta), Tahiti and the Sandwich Islands. the plates being: Mort de Capitaine Cook (frontispiece); Indien courant un Muck; Habitans de l’Ile Mallicalo and Débarquement du Capitaine Cook dans la baie de Karakakooka. The appendix contains an interesting ethnographic essay ‘Des deux variétés de l’espèce humaine recnnues dans l’Océanie’, two others on the geography of Oceania and on previous voyages to the region followed by biographies of participants in Cook’s voyages (Cook, Banks, Solander, the Forsters, Clark and Bligh). Worldcat and Library Hub locate no UK or North American copies (though there is one at the University of Hawaii)

First edition, Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer issue (of which it forms part of the second series). A fictional account of the voyage to Sydney, the convict regime, the Australian interior and the gold mines. Merruau’s list of sources includes the ‘Report of the Commissioner of Inquiry into the State of the Colony of New South Wales’ as well as Rowcroft’s Tales of the Colonies and Haygarth’s Bush Life in Australia. Ferguson, 12528 (first issue without adverts or, presumably, the Bibliothèque des Chemins de Fer series title.

First edition, scarce, dedicated to Jean-Jacques Rousseau by its Scottish author. Captain Cook had returned from his circumnavigation in 1771 to widespread acclaim, and Mercer’s poem reflects this, though he chooses Anson’s round-the-world voyage as the vehicle for his protagonist, St Preux.

First edition in French of Tales of the Colonies, presentation copy, inscribed by the translator. In this, the first of his two novels, Rowcroft drew on his own experience as an Australian settler. The work is in part a guide for prospective settlers and part a sensational tale of the hazards of pioneer-era Van Dieman’s Land: sheep-stealers, bushrangers, Aboriginal attackers, floods, snakes, eagles and wild cattle. Very scarce. OCLC lists 7 copies: Bibliothèque Nationale, University of Basle, National Library of Australia, State Library of New South Wales, State Library of Victoria, University of Melborne and National Library of New Zealand.