DUMONT D'URVILLE, Jules Sébastien César. Voyage de Découverte Autour du Monde et a la recherche de La Pérouse. Paris, 1832-4. Second ed

6 volumes, comprising: text, 5 volumes bound in 10, 8vo (207 x 122 mm); atlas, folio (522 x 348 mm). Text woodcut vignettes. (First half of vol. I on poor paper, browned). Atlas: engraved portrait frontispiece, engraved vignette title-page, 8 engraved maps (6 double-page), 12 lithographed plates (6 hand-colored). Contemporary French quarter green morocco gilt, marbled boards, binder's ticket of Lam to text volumes.Second Edition. The rare "household" or general reader's edition, under a new imprint, of Dumont-d'Urville's narrative of the Astrolabe expedition, first published in 1830-33. This important voyage was one in a great series undertaken by the French government in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries for scientific and political purposes. Led by Jules Dumont d'Urville, its intention "was to gain additional information about the principal groups of islands in the Pacific and to augment the mass of scientific data acquired by Louis Duperrey. The Astrolabe sailed south, around the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at Port Jackson. Proceeding to New Zealand, its coast, especially the southern part of Cook Strait, was surveyed with great care. Tonga and parts of the Fiji Archipeligo were explored, then New Britain, New Guinea, Amboina, Tasmania, Vanikoro, Guam and Java. The return home was by way of Mauritius and the Cape of Good Hope. Huge amounts of scientific materials were collected and published" (Hill). With the atlas volume rarely found with these text volumes. VERY RARE: this second edition is not recorded in the standard Pacific bibliographies. Brunet II, 882; NMM 156 (noting only Atlas of 1883). See Hill 504 (first edition).