#O36
1846
First Edition. Sm. Quarto Text & Folio Atlas. vii, 512 pp. With two lithographed folding maps and twenty-two hand coloured illustrations on eleven lithographed plates. Text in period brown gilt tooled quarter calf with marbled boards. Atlas in period-style green gilt tooled quarter calf with marbled boards. One map with expertly repaired tears, text with some very minor foxing and rubbed on extremities but overall still a very good set.
Text with the bookplate of John Ralph Willis. "In 1843-4 the marine officer Anne Raffenel explored Bambouk, and in 1846-48 made his way into Kaarta. Raffenel. Born at Versailles, had joined the navy in 1826 and for the next sixteen years voyaged to different parts of the world. He was appointed governor of Madagascar in 1855 and died there in June 1858"(Howgego 1800-1850, W23); "Explorations made in 1843 on the upper [Faleme] river by Raffenel carried him to Bambouk and the gold-bearing regions of the Faleme; he then traveled into Kaarta, the country of the Bambara, where he was held prisoner for eight months, but the ministry quietly avoided acting on the proposal to stop native razzias on the posts by direct annexation"(Priestley, France Overseas, 52); Gay, 2915.
