"On board the Uranie, commanded by Captain Freycinet, I traversed the Indian Seas; visited the South Sea Archipelago; and after doubling Cape Horn, and spending three years in dangers and fatigues, saluted the Atlantic as an old friend . . . ."

- Jacques Arago, Narrative of a Voyage Round the World (Preface, p. vi).

ARAGO, J. NARRATIVE OF A VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD, in the Uranie and Physicienne Corvettes, Commanded by Captain Freycinet, During the Years 1817, 1818, 1819, and 1820 . . . With Twenty-Six Engravings . . . . London: Treuttel and Wurtz, Treuttel, Jun. and Richter, 1823. 4to. Modern dark green half morocco, bound without a half-title. Two parts in one, with part-titles. A.e.g. vi, [xxx], 285, [i], 297, [iii] pages. Folding frontispiece map and twenty-five lithographed plates after Arago. New endpapers, two small closed tears to title, slight offsetting and foxing of plates. A near fine copy of a scarce item.

FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, in which "Jacques Arago, artist to the scientific expedition headed by Freycinet . . . , wrote the account of the voyage in a very witty and amusing style. Its success was great, and it was printed countless times with and without the illustrations, complete or abridged. It was translated into several languages" (Borba de Moraes). Arago wrote much of Narrative of a Voyage Round the World "in the form of letters to a friend, possibly his brother" (Forbes), the astronomer François Dominique Arago.

After completing his formal education, Jacques Etienne Victor Arago (1790-1855) began a series of travels to ever-farther destinations. In 1817, a circumnavigation was undertaken by Captain Louis Claude de Saluces de Freycinet in the corvette Uranie under the auspices of the French government and Academy of Sciences, the principal purposes of which were "the investigation of the figure of the earth, and of the elements of terrestrial magnetism" (p. i). Arago "obtained from the government permission to board the Uranie in the capacity of draftsman. A man of art and of study, Mr. Jacques Arago thought only with pleasure of undertaking a great voyage of circumnavigation, from where he would undoubtedly bring back some discoveries, and where his activity would find, in any case, the fuel it needed. All the passengers of the Uranie, and especially captain Freycinet, who commanded it, gave this honorable testimony concerning Mr. Jacques Arago, that no one showed himself to be more patient, or more bold, or more intelligent, either to face the storms, or to endure the cruelest deprivations. He took part in the disaster of the Uranie, which ran aground in the Falkland Islands, and did not return to France until 1821" (Tr. from Nouvelle Biographie Universelle).

Despite the loss of the Uranie, the expedition brought back a wealth of magnetic, hydrographic, meteorological, zoological, botanical, geological and ethnographic observations and specimens from such ports of call as Rio de Janeiro, the Hawaiian Islands, Australia, Guam and the Marianas Islands. Arago's drawings of subjects encountered in these places, twenty-five of which are found in Narrative of a Voyage Round the World, were highly praised in the official report to the French Academy of Sciences: "The collection of drawings which Captain Freycinet has brought home from his voyage round the world . . . affords the strongest proof of the unwearied zeal and remarkable intelligence of M. Arago, the draftsman to the expedition" (p. xxvi). Borba de Moraes I, p. 44. Brunet I, 372. Ferguson 885. Forbes I, 562. NMMC I, 154. Sabin 1865. BT000064.

$4200

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