Voyage de la Baie de Hudson.

ELLIS (Henry).

Publication Date: 1749

About this Item

Ait en 1746 & 1747, pour la Découverte du Passage de Nord-Ouest. Contenant Une Description exacte des Cotes & l'Histoire Naturelle du Pays, avec une Relation Historique de Routes les Expéditions faites jusqu'ici pour la Découverte d'un Passage plus court aux Indes Orientales, & des Preuves évidentes de la Réalité de ce Passage. First French edition. Two volumes bound in one. Folding map and 10 folding plates. Contemporary mottled calf, gilt spine, leather label. All edges red. Marbled endpapers, bookplate to front pastedown (c.1920). Small ink stamp (Bibliotheque de la Davière) to title page and one other page. Very good. 1: lvi, 182, [4]pp.; 2: 319pp. Paris, Antoine Boudet, First published in London in the preceding year with the title "A Voyage to Hudson's Bay, by the Dobbs Galley and California, in the years 1746 and 1747, for discovering a North West Passage". "The first part contains a synopsis of twenty-three English voyages to discover the Northwest Passage, a history of the rise of the Hudson's Bay Company, and the discovery attempted from New England. The second part gives an account of a voyage under Captains Moor and Francis Smith, financed by private subscription, with Arthur Dobbs the leading subscriber. Ellis, also a subscriber, was hydrographer, surveyor, and mineralogist on the expedition, which proved, finally, the nonexistence of a Northwest Passage from Hudson Bay. The voyage led to a rapid decline of British interest in the search for a Northwest Passage, which was not revived until 1816. The work includes many valuable observations on tides, on the vagaries of the compass, and on the customs of the Eskimos, people then practically unknown" (Hill). Sabin, 22313.

Seller Inventory # 180871

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Voyage de la Baie de Hudson.
• Publication Date: 1749
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition