Rare Book Monthly
Book Catalogue Reviews - June - 2005 Issue
Exquisite European Works and European Americana from Librairie Thomas-Scheler
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Item 20 is a bound edition including five Dutch travel sagas from around 1600. There is a 1598 first edition of Cornelis de Houtman's Dutch trade expedition to the East Indies, Premier livre de l'histoire de la Navigation aux Indies Orientales par les Hollandois.... Gerard de Veer discusses three Dutch voyages in search of a northeast passage in this 1600 second French edition, Vraye description de trios voyages.... Olivier van Noort undertook the first Dutch, and only the fourth altogether circumnavigation of the globe in 1598. Only Magellan, Drake and Cavendish preceded him. Of the four ships that sailed in 1598, just one returned in 1601. The title is Description du penible voyage fait entour de l'Univers.... Other titles describe the second Dutch expedition to the East Indies and a trip along the west coast of Africa in 1601-02. $120,000.
One of the earliest reports on Florida came from French explorer Rene Laudonniere, L'Histoire notable de la Floride situee es Indes Occidentales.... Laudonniere was sent by the French to Florida in 1564 to establish a colony for French Huguenots. He sailed up the St. Johns River where he constructed a fort, Fort Caroline. Laudonniere was hopeful of securing much of the land for France. However, events turned against him. Many of his settlers rebelled against his authority and left. Local Indians, at first friendly, refused to continue to supply provisions, threatening those who remained with famine. On top of this, another Frenchmen, Jean Ribault, arrived with news that the French had questioned his loyalty and stripped him of the governorship of Florida. He was preparing to return to France to defend himself when the Spanish, under Pedro Menendez, arrived. Menendez settled at St. Augustine, forming the first permanent European settlement in North America. From there, he attacked Fort Caroline, killing all of the French he could get his hands on. Laudonniere was one of the French to escape into the forest. They made their way back to the ocean where they were able to hook up with a French ship. Eventually, Laudonniere found his way back to France, but was coldly received and spent the remainder of his life in retirement. Commenting on the horrors Laudonniere and his settlers went through, as recounted herein, the 1875 description from the Field Auction states, "In one respect, at least, it relieves the ferocity charged upon the Savages by most writers, by its narration of the horrible massacre perpetrated on the French, by the fiend Menendez." Item 24. $120,000.
Most French attempts to colonize the new world ultimately ended like Fort Caroline, without success. Here is an exception. Jacques Bouton recounts a successful colonization in Relation de l'establishment des francois depuis l'an 1635. En l'isle de la Martinique.... Bouton helped establish a Jesuit mission on the Caribbean island of Martinique. This book tells about the island's natives and their customs, the establishment of a French colony, and slavery. Martinique remains a colony of France to this day. However, along the way, the French would kill many of the natives and expel the remainder, as they were unwilling to become laborers for French masters. They were replaced with slaves. Bouton arrived on Martinique in 1640, the year in which this book was published, and just five years after the island's colonization. Item 9. $45,000.
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