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

An extremely rare first edition in French of this celebrated scientific manual by the British physician and botanist John Coakley Lettsom, originally entitled “The Naturalist's and Traveller's Companion” and published in London in 1772.

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

John Coakley Lettsom, Le voyageur naturaliste, ou instructions sur les moyens de ramasser les objets d'histoire naturelle, & de les bien conserver... Traduit de l'anglois sur la seconde édition corrigée & augmentée, auquel on a jount l'Art de calmer les flots de la mer, ouvrage aussi traduit de l'anglois..., Amsterdam, Chez Lacombe, 1775.

PP.: (IV), XXII, (II), 211, (V), 42. COMPLETE, with one plate outside the text.

Copy with leaves in overall very good condition.

Contemporary full-leather binding with gilt title and decoration on the spine, very well preserved. Marbled endpapers. Red edges.

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