PBA Galleries

xxxix, [1],479pp. plus folding map. (8vo) 22.7x14 cm (9x5½”), modern quarter red leather over marbled boards, gilt spine, modern blue endpapers. First London Edition.

First London edition, after the original French edition of two volumes published in 1813, with unfavorable comments about the British removed by the British editor.    The folding map depicts the northern part of South America

"The author sailed from France in 1791 at the age of 18 to visit an uncle in Guadeloupe.  The latter died soon after the young man's arrival and our writer, left without resources, fled to Trinidad upon the outbreak of revolution in the French Antilles and became a resident planter there.  He subsequently departed from that island after it passed under British control, going first to the United States and later to France...Gives a splendid picture of life in Trinidad from 1792 to 1806 and contains useful commercial and production statistics" - Ragatz.