DUMONT D'URVILLE, Jules Sébastien César (1790-1842). Voyage au Pole Sud et dans l'Océanie. Paris, 1841-46. FIRST EDITION.
Text volumes only, 10 volumes bound in 5 (of 30, lacking 13 volumes 8vo scientific reports, and 4 volumes folio atlas), 8vo (207 x 143 mm). 9 engraved folding maps. (Scattered foxing.) Contemporary gilt-ruled half calf (lightly rubbed).FIRST EDITION of the first 10 volumes of this important exploratory expedition to the Pacific and southern Polar region. The work was issued over thirteen years, from 1841[2]-1855 and is seldom found complete. These first 10 volumes comprise the official textual record of the voyage and were those published during Dumont d'Urville's lifetime. After his accidental death in 1842, the work was continued and supplemented under the supervision of M. Dumoulin, who added sections on anthropology, botany, geology, hydrography, zoology and physics. The expedition reached the ice pack in January 1838 but failed to penetrate it. Returning eastward, the ships visited South Orkney and South Shetland Islands, discovered Joinville Island and Louis Philippe Land and proceeded to Valparaiso and Juan Fernndez Island. They then sailed to Mangareva, the Marquesas, Tahiti, Samoa, Tonga, Fiji, Guam, Palau and they circumnavigated Borneo. In 1840, from Tasmania, they returned to the Antarctic region where Adelie Land was discovered and an extensive visit to New Zealand was made. No complete edition was published in English until 1987-88. Ferguson 3184; Hill 508 (treating these first ten volumes as a distinct work); Rosove 105; Spence 399.
