With Forster's Important American Botanical Catalogue
Travels through that part of North America formerly called Louisiana …Translated from the French by John Reinhold Forster, F. A. S. Illustrated with Notes relative chiefly to Natural History. To which is added by the Translator A Systematic Catalogue of all the Known Plants of English North America, or a Flora Americae Septentrionalis.
Bossu, Jean Bernard.
London: Printed for T. Davies, 1771.
Price:
$6,500.00
About the item
First edition in English. [2], viii, 407, [1]; [4], 432pp. 2 vols. 8vo. Contemporary smooth tan calf, spines gilt, red and green morocco lettering pieces, minor repair at upper joint of vol. 1. Bookplates removed from endpapers, else very good. Graff 363; Howes B626; Sabin 6465; Clark II:5; Streeter sale 1518.
Item #377756
Originally published in French in Paris in 1768, this is the first English translation of Nouveaux voyages aux Indes occidentales. Bossu served two tours of service as a Captain of Marines, travelling among the Indians of the Mississippi River Valley and this work consists of twenty-one letters to the Marquis de L'Estrade describing his journey from 1751 to 1762. His ventures ranged from Fort Chartres in present-day Illinois, to Mobile, and along the Mississippi. His visit to New Orleans took place only thirty years after its founding, and he was able to gather considerable information from the memories of locals.
"Bossu wrote well and his letters not only give an interesting picture of life in the Mississippi Valley and the Mobile Country to the east at the beginning of the second half of the eighteenth century, but incorporated also are many sketches of events in preceding years" (Streeter).
Almost all of the second volume of this edition is given over to the catalogue of plants, making it an important piece of American natural history. The catalogue, which does not appear in the first edition in French, was compiled by the translator of this English edition Johann Reinhold Forster, the well-known German explorer and botanist.
