ARAGO, Jacques Lot n° 5

Promenade autour du monde, pendant les années 1817, 1818, 1819 et 1820, sur les corvettes du roi l'Uranie et la Physicienne, commandées par M. Freycinet. Paris, Leblanc, 1822. Paris, Leblanc, 1822. 2 volumes of text in-8 (202 x 120 mm), and 1 volume of atlas small in-folio (354 x 248 mm). Text : 2 ff.n.ch., XXX, 452 pp. for volume I ; 2 ff.n.ch., 506 pp. for volume II. Atlas : 2 ff.n.ch. (title and table), 26 lithographed plates including one map. Half marbled basane, smooth spine, green morocco title-piece and tome (uniform binding of the period). Ferguson, 850; Forbes, Hawaiian National bibliography, 537 ("frequently lacking atlas"); Chadenat, 6; Hill, 28; Sabin, 1867; Brunet, I, 372. First edition, first issue copy (with titles dated 1822, the atlas complete with its title page and table of plates) of this important circumnavigation report. It includes information on the rites and customs of the natives of Australia, Guam, Hawaii, and the Mariana Islands. Among the 26 plates of the atlas one can notice a world map, a view of the church of Gloria (Rio de Janeiro), representations of anthropophagi, the king and queen of the Carolinas, a representation of a tiger hunt, as well as details on Hawaii, the Sandwich Islands and Australia (plates 16 to 24). A copy that belonged to the Count de Noé with his signature on the endpapers and on the title of the first volume. Louis-Pantaléon-Jude Amédée, comte de Noé (1777-1858) was a French politician, emigrated to India where he served in the English armies. Back in France he began a political career where he was called to the peerage and sat in the Chamber of Peers until 1848. The cartoonist and caricaturist Cham is his grandson and adopted the pseudonym Amédée de Noé. Inserted is an autograph missive signed by Arago of April 17, 1837, addressed to the director of the Royal Academy of Music, about a Miss Falcon. Atlas with trace of wetness, otherwise a nice copy, complete.