Author Description

This four-volume, illustrated collection, issued by the Paris publisher Furne in the mid-nineteenth century, showcased the work of recent French explorers for a popular readership avid for accounts of exotic foreign lands. It contains lightly fictionalised versions of accounts by three influential geographers and naturalists. Volumes 1 and 2, by the naval officer Jules Dumont d'Urville (1790-1842), cover his first two voyages to the Pacific; originally published in 1832, the printings reissued here date from 1863 and 1859. Volume 3 contains an account by Alcide d'Orbigny (1802-57) of his travels in South America in 1826-33, supplemented by material on North America and Iceland. It was first published in 1841; this posthumous 1859 printing was updated by Alfred Jacobs (1802-70). Volume 4 (1859), substantially updated by Jacobs, is based on an 1839 publication by Jean-Baptiste Benoit Eyriès (1767-1846), a founder member of the French Geographical Society.