MOREAU DE SAINT-MÉRY (Médéric-Louis-Élie). Description topographical,... Lot 26

MOREAU DE SAINT-MÉRY (Médéric-Louis-Élie). Description topographical, physical, civil, political and historical description of the French part of the island of Saint-Domingue. Philadelphia, Chez l'Auteur ; Paris, Dupont ; Hambourg, Chez les principaux Libraires, 1797-1798. 2 volumes in-4, bradel marbled paper boards, smooth spine, red title page (Modern binding). Sabin, n°50571. - Leclerc (1867, n°1038). VERY RARE FIRST EDITION OF THIS IMPORTANT IMPORTANT WORK FOR THE HISTORY OF THE FRENCH COLONY OF SAINT-DOMINGUE JUST BEFORE THE INSURRECTION OF 1791. Published with the financial help of Talleyrand, it was printed by the by the author himself, who was born in 1750 in Fort-Royal in Martinique, lawyer in Saint-Domingue, deputy of Martinique to the Constituent Assembly and then emigrated to the United States where he settled as a bookseller and printer in Philadelphia. A folding map of the island of Saint-Domingue, dated 1796 and engraved by Vallance, and a large folding table. The two large volumes of the French part are full of precious information the history of the West Indies. Everything had been written, until 1789, under the eyes of the inhabitants of the colonies and with the help of the knowledge of many of them. No other historian before Moreau de Saint-Méry had spent fourteen years in searching, either in the colony or at Versailles, for historical details intended to make his topographical description more useful. Only he had, since the catastrophe that occurred in the French colonies, such a complete documentation on the history of the Antilles (Anthony Louis Elicona, Un colonial sous la Révolution en France et en Amérique : Moreau de Saint-Méry, 1934, p. 144). 2 engraved maps of Saint-Domingue are enclosed. Pitting to many of the quires and to the board. to many quires and to the table; small wine-coloured mould to the upper corner of the Cccc section of volume II. Marginal staining to quires b and c of volume II. Map foxed.