the preferred English edition, edited by Halley

The preferred English edition of this important voyage to the South America, which contains a postscript by Edmund Halley (the astronomer) correcting certain geographical errors made by Frézier.

Frézier, a French engineer, was contracted to sail to the Spanish possessions in South America to build forts to defend against English and Dutch attacks. At the same time the French government enlisted him to map the west coast of South America. The first part of Frezier's work gives an account of the voyage from France around Cape Horn; the second part to the coasts of Chile and Peru and their towns and cities.

With provenance for David Bosanquet (1699-1741), an English Turkey Merchant who built a family fortune in Halab in the Levant, and was later a director of the London Assurance Company, and his son Richard Bosanquet (d.1809).

First English edition, 4to (25.5 x 19 cm); title page in red and black, 22 engraved charts and plans, 15 plates; contemporary panelled calf, old signatures to title, tiny repair to foot of spine, sprinkled edges, lightly rubbed, a fine copy.

Borba de Moraes p.329; Hill (2004), 654; Goldsmiths' 5338; Nissen (ZBI), 1433; Sabin 25926.