Relations de divers voyages curieux (1672)

[Thevenot, Melchisedec, editor]. Relations de divers voyages curieux. Paris, 1672. Four volumes folio, with 11 folding or double-page maps, 23 plates, some double-page, 5 coloured, and numerous text illustrations, some full-page, contemporary calf, the sides with dense penwork decoration, spines gilt in compartments (some joints and headcaps skilfully repaired, a little surface erosion of the leather from the dye used in the decoration). A fine, clean set, with the Nova Hollandia map, the first map of Australia, in the sought-after first state, without the Tropic of Capricorn or the addition of rhumb lines. From the noted library of Frances Mary Richardson Currer(1785-1861), whom De Ricci describes as 'England's earliest female bibiophile', with her bookplate in each volume. Thevenot's important collection of voyage accounts was drawn partly from such sources as Hakluyt and Purchas but many of its relations are published here for the first time. Though the geographical range is world-wide, the collection is particularly notable for the accounts of China and the East Indies, as well as for the famous map showing Tasman's discoveries and the early printing of Pelsaert's account of the wreck of the Batavia. Owing largely to the accretive manner of the work's publication, the composition of sets varies. The present example accords closely with the collation given by Brunet, except that it does not include the map of Pegu and Japan--as often--but has the account of the 'Voyage de la Tercere par de Chaste', of 18 pages, which is not usually found.