Frédéric Bouyer / Riou - La Guyane Française - 1867

BOUYER (Frédéric). French Guiana. Notes and reminiscences of a journey undertaken in 1862-1863. Paris, Librairie de L. Hachette et Cie, 1867. One large octavo volume (35 x 26 cm), 316 pages, half red morocco, original spine with gilt-ruled raised bands, gilt edges, glazed endpapers (binding signed Charles Magnier at the tail).

Original edition.

Frédéric Bouyer (1821–1886), naval officer and explorer, led in 1862-1863 a mission in French Guiana as part of the imperial navy’s colonial and hydrographic operations. Rear Admiral and corresponding member of the Geographical Society, he belongs to that generation of officer-writers who, in the wake of Dumont d’Urville (1790–1842), combine scientific rigor with narrative ambition. French Guiana constitutes his masterwork: the fruit of direct observation of the colony at a time when the question of the penal colony and the lure of gold fed metropolitan debates, his account contributes to the knowledge of the Guianese territory under the Second Empire.

The work unfolds as a sequence of chapters covering the physical and human geography of the colony: the coastline and coastal rivers, the equatorial forests, the Amerindian and maroon populations, the fauna and flora, the penal institutions, attempts at agricultural colonization, and nascent gold mining exploitation. The text is enriched with numerous wood-engravings after drawings by Édouard Riou (1833–1900), the regular illustrator for Jules Verne.

Good general condition, a scuff on the upper cover, corners worn, other defects are minor.