Lettsom / Franklin - Le Voyageur Naturaliste - L'Art de Calmer les Flots de la Mer - 1775

Very rare first French edition of this famous scientific manual written by the British physician and botanist John Coakley Lettsom, originally titled "The Naturalist's and Traveller's Companion" and published in London in 1772.

The work served as a practical pocket guide for travelers of the eighteenth century, explaining in detail how to collect, catalogue, and preserve specimens of natural history (plants, insects, birds, fish, minerals and fossils) without them deteriorating during long ocean voyages. This edition is particularly sought-after because it includes as an appendix the translation of the important study by Benjamin Franklin and William Brownrigg on the use of oil to calm the waves at sea.

John Coakley Lettsom, Le voyageur naturaliste, ou instructions sur les moyens de ramasser les objets d'histoire naturelle, & de les bien conserver... Translated from English on the second corrected & augmented edition, to which has been added the Art of calming the waves of the sea, work also translated from English..., Amsterdam, Chez Lacombe, 1775.

PP.: (IV), XXII, (II), 211, (V), 42. COMPLETE, with a plate out of text.

Copy with maps in overall very good condition.

Contemporary full leather binding with title and gilt tooling on the spine, very well preserved. Endpapers with marbled paper. Red edges.

Prestigious provenance: it bears the ownership stamp of the private library, now extinct, of the famous French politician, geologist and botanist Antoine Passy (1792-1873).