Journal de Madame Rose de Saulces de Freycinet d’après le manuscrit original, accompagné de notes par Charles Duplomb by Madame Rose Marie Pinon de Saulces de Freycinet - 1927

Paris, France: Société D'Éditions Géographiques, Maritimes et Coloniales, 1927. First Edition. Softcover. Near Fine. 190 pp. Quarto- 9.5" x 12" tall. With 25 plates from drawings, engravings, aquatints with some in colour, 3 double-page. French text. Original printed wrappers and glassine jacket. Scarce original publication of this journal kept from 1817 to 1820. Rose Marie Pinon (1794-1832) was a well-educated middle class girl when she married French naval officer and navigator Captain Louis de Freycinet (1779- 1842). Despite the fact that wives were forbidden to join their husbands, in 1817, Rose accompanied Louis on a hazardous three year surveying voyage that would sail across the Atlantic to Rio de Janeiro, around South Africa to Australia, the Cook Islands, Hawaii and eventually the Falkland Islands where it was shipwrecked. Hill notes that "This important journal was written by the wife of Louis de Freycinet who was a rare female passenger on a naval voyage. The journal remained unpublished for nearly a century. Smuggled on board, Rose's presence was made public to the crew only after the vessel was well out of sight of the French coast. Although the crew was not entirely happy, Rose became a productive sailor and enjoyed life at sea. Her journal reveals a young and vivacious woman who made keen observations on the peoples and places she encountered. The journal is here illustrated with several unpublished drawings by the expedition's artist, Jacques Etienne Arago." Views include those of Rio de Janeiro, Port Jackson and the islands of Bourbon, Timor, Caroline and Hawaii. Slight toning of page margins but text and plates are completely unaffected. There are a few minor indentations to margins of preliminaries and two tiny holes in endpaper margins. Hill 652, Chadenat 1607. A splendid rare copy offered for sale by Come By Chance Books.