[with, as issued] Memoires de l'Amerique Septentrionale, ou la suite des Voyages de Mr. le Baron de Lahontan. Qui contiennent la Description d'une grande étendué de Païs de ce Continent, l'interêt des François & des Anglois, leurs Commerces, leurs Navigations, les Mœurs & les Coutumes des Sauvages, &c. Together, 2 vols., issued as Vol. I & Vol. II of the same work. [24], 279; 220, [17] pp. Illustrated with copper-engraved frontispiece in Vol. I; 22 copper-engraved plates (5 folding); 3 folding copper-engraved maps. (12mo) 6-1/2x3-3/4, period speckled calf, spines tooled in gilt, raised bands, morocco lettering pieces, marbled endpapers. First Edition.
Lahontan spent twenty years in Canada fighting the Iroquois and traveling about, and exploring along the Wisconsin and Mississippi Rivers. Forced into exile for his unsympathetic accounts of the civil and ecclesiastical administration of Canada, Lahonton is today best remembered not for the value of the accounts of his explorations, but for his inserting an account of a pretended trip west of the Mississippi which he undoubtedly could not have made. Streeter notes that "Lahontan's work is devoted almost entirely to the description of Indian life in Canada, and is one of the best early works on the subjects." The folding maps are quite detailed, if speculative (some say spurious), and the striking array of plates depict Indians in many aspects, their clothing, accouterments, weapons, pipes, etc. The work includes a 26-page "Petit Dictionaire de la Langue des Sauvages." This is the third, or "globe" issue, with armillary sphere ornament on the title-pages, and the plates "re-eng. & improved," as noted by Howes, who also states that "the two volumes...were apparently, in early editions, sold both separately and in sets. This explains the frequent appearance of individual volumes and of sets not uniform and often with different imprints and dates." This is not the case with the present set, matching in both imprint and binding, and quite handsome. With the armorial bookplates of Bibliotheque de Chateau des Ormes. (Field 852); Graff 2365; Howes L25; (Streeter 107).
Condition:
Just slight rubbing to spines and extremities; one or two instances of marginal staining, 1 map with lower margin extended, still in fine, clean condition.