R4,000
SECOND VOYAGE DANS L’INTERIEUR DE L’AFRIQUE, PAR LE CAP DE BONNE-ESPERANCE, DANS LES ANNEES 1783, 84, ET 85 (3 VOLUMES, PUBLISHED 1794) by Francois Le Vaillant
Paris: Chez H. J. Jansen et Comp. 1794
12mo, xliv + 304 + 2pp. Errata, 426, 525 + 7pp. errata, list of plates, etc. Quarter leather hardcover bindings, gilt lettering and tooling to spines, marbled boards, marbled edges, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, one fixed lint bookmark to each volume. Text in French. 3 fold-out plates of panoramas in vol. 1, 2 in vol. 2, and a total of 22 plates spread across the three volumes. Collated ans complete. Two loosely inserted newspaper clippings on Le Vaillant from the 1990’s in vol. 1.
François Levaillant (born Vaillant, later in life as Le Vaillant, "The Valiant") (1753–1824) was a French author, explorer, naturalist, zoological collector, and noted ornithologist. He described many new species of birds based on birds he collected in Africa and several birds are named after him. He was among the first to use colour plates for illustrating birds and opposed the use of binomial nomenclature introduced by Carl Linnaeus, preferring instead to use descriptive French names such as the bateleur (meaning "tumbler or tight-rope walker") for the distinctive African eagle. By travelling around southern Africa, observing the wild and reflecting upon himself and mankind, it has been claimed that Le Vaillant was the pioneer of a genre of travel writing while also inventing the idea of a wildlife "safari" although he did not use that word of Arabian origin. The South American fish Brachyplatystoma vaillantii is named after him.
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