Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland. Troiseieme Partie. Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne.-Geographique et Physique du Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne.-Atlas Geographique et Physique du Royaume de Nouvelle-Espagne.

HUMBOLDT, Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von (1769-1859) and Aim BONPLAND (1773-1858).

Published by Paris: F. Schoell, 1811.

About this Item

2 text volumes in one: 4to., (13 x 10 inches). Half-title, sectional title-pages (a few pale mostly marginal stains). Contemporary diced calf, gilt, all edges gilt, fine gilt supra libros of the Earls of Darnley in the center of each cover (rebacked to style, extremities scuffed). Atlas volume: folio (23 x 17 inches). Half-title (spotted). 20 fine numbered engraved maps on 18 sheets, including one large folding general map of Nouvelle-Espagne, 8 double-page, and 6 with original hand-colour (some marginal spotting). Contemporary brown cloth backed drab paper boards (rebacked preserving the original spine, extremities worn with minor loss). Provenance: supra libros of the Earls of Darnley in the center of each cover of the text volume; Thomas Winthrop Streeter (1883-1965), with his bookplate on the front paste-down of each volume, his pencilled note recording his purchase of the books from Bernard Quaritch in 1952, his sale 1966, lot 195. "A CORNERSTONE IN ANY COLLECTION ON MEXICO" (Hill). First French edition, second issue (a German edition was published in Tubigen, 1809-14, with fewer plates and maps) of the third part in the monumental 29-volume series "Voyage aux regions equinoxiales du Nouveau Continent". The two text volumes and an atlas of 20 numbered maps and profiles relating to New Spain, "contains the most complete and accurate picture of the natural resources of Mexico then available, and in 1824 was declared by a representative of the Mexican government to have contributed to the reanimation of the active industry of the nation. It also contains references to the early exploration of the Californias" (Hill). The atlas includes plates on volcanoes, land profiles, a map of the southern part of North America, maps of Mexico, and the celebrated "Carte Generale du Royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne." A "truly magnificent cartographic achievement" (Wheat). Between 1799 and 1804 Humboldt and Bonpland's research expedition through America "amassed exhaustive data in a wide array of fields from meterolgy to ethnography, and gathered 60,000 plant specimens, 6,300 of which had been hitherto unknown in Europe" (Norman). Graff 2009; Hill 843; Phillips 2682; Reese & Miles "Creating America" 23; Ramsey 328; Sabin 33756; Streeter I:195 THIS COPY; Streeter "Texas" 1042 note; Wagner-Camp-Becker 7a:3, 7a:3a:1; Wheat "Mapping the Transmississippi West" 302-305.

Seller Inventory # 002171

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland. Troiseieme Partie. Essai Politique sur le Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne.-Geographique et Physique du Royaume de la Nouvelle-Espagne.-Atlas Geographique et Physique du Royaume de Nouvelle-Espagne.
• Publisher: Paris: F. Schoell, 1811.
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Seller catalogs:
  • Western Americana
  • New Spain