Voyage en divers Etats d’Europe et d’Asie, Entrepris pour decouvrir un nouveau chemin a la Chine. Contenant Plusieurs Remarques curieuses de Physique, de Geographie, d’Hydrographie & d’Histoire. Avec une description de la grande Tartarie, & des Differens Peuples qui l’habitent.

Paris:: Chez, Claude Barbin, Jean Boudot, George & Louis Josse, avec privilege du Roy, 1692., 1692. Sm. 4to. [xx], 406, [xxiv] pp. 6 chapter vignettes engraved by Vallet (pp. [aii], 1, 71, 165, 231, 323), large engraved portrait of General Stanislas Jablonowski (by Picart), large folding map of Siberia, 3 engraved plates: engr. pl. of transport sled of Moscow (facing p.150), engr. pl. of a Calmouc Tartar (facing p. 195), "Esquiss des Cosaques" (facing p. 356). Nineteenth century quarter maroon morocco, maroon paper over boards; rubbed. Rubber-stamp of Abbe E. [Emile] Longin, Beaujeu [fl.1904]; receipt of sale of this copy to Armand Pushman, 1932 [NYC?]. First edition. This work was first translated into English in 1693. "At this time, a major preoccupation of the Catholic Church and its China mission was to discover a safe land route from Europe to Peking through central Asia. This was due to the large numbers of out-going clergy who perished tragically every year at sea." (Ames & Love, p. 202). "The last decade of the century saw the publication of the accounts of several overland travelers to China and their destinations of China’s inner-Asian neighbors. The story of the Jesuit Philippe Avril’s attempt to establish a route across Russia for the safe passage of missionaries to China appeared in 1692 and includes descriptions of both the routes from Moscow to China and the peoples on China’s frontiers. Avril, himself, however, did not travel beyond Moscow, and his descriptions therefore are not the result of his own observations." (Lach & Kley, pp. 1685-1686). The same for Nicolaas Witsen. Avril Philippe, a Jesuit, born in France, explored extensively throughout Asia and the Far East. He was a professor of mathematics and philosophy in Paris before he began his overland journey. He traveled for six years through Kurdistan, Armenia, Astrakhan, Persia and other parts of the southeast. At one point he came to Moscow and was refused entry to Tatary. He was sent by the government to Poland via Istanbul and back to France. Apparently affected by exhaustion and disease he still undertook another voyage, his last, for the ship was lost at sea circa 1698. – Love, Ronald S. "A Passage to China: A French Jesuit’s Perceptions of Siberia in the 1680s." French Colonial History, 3: p. 94, 2003. Ames & Love offer: "Though obliged to leave Moscow, [Avril] did not return to France with Louis Barnabe . . . Remaining instead at Warsaw, the two Jesuits had entered in early March 1688, Avril attempted twice more to achieve his objective or reaching China by land – if not through Siberia, then via Persia and Central Asia. Aided in part by the Polish monarch, John Sobieski (r.1674-1696), and his ambassador to Russia, the French priest once again traveled to Moscow in late spring. Just two days after his arrival in the Muscovite capital, however, Avril was ordered summarily out of the country. Once again, he appealed the command in vain. ‘Russia intended to keep her trade with China a secret.’ Nor did he have better luck later the same year (1688), when he and a fellow Jesuit, Pere de Beauvillier, tried going south to Constantinople instead, and thence through Persia to Bokhara, Samarkland, and the Chinese frontier. Crossing secretly into Ottoman territory, the two men were arrested as spies. After several weeks, they secured their release and resumed their trek. But Avril, whose health had been waning as a result of relentless exertions, suddenly developed a hemorrhage. Ordered to abandon the search and return home by his superiors, he reached France in autumn 1689." (Ames & Love, p. 219). For Abbe Emile Longin, provenance: see, Bulletin de la Societe des sciences et arts du Beaujolais, (1904), p.92. There is a Maggs Bros. [London booksellers], receipt of sale of this copy to Armand Pushman, 10, Nov. 1932. Armand was one of two sons of Hovsep Pushman (1877-1966), an American artist of Armenian descent. He had studied art at the Imperial School of Fine Arts, Istanbul. For a time Pushman lived at the famous Mission Inn, Riverside, California. He was also involved in the founding of the Laguna Beach Art Association. Armand Pushman (d.1999), lived to 98 years and had been throughout his career a partner with his brother in their carpet business Pushman & Company. See: NYT, Obituary, January 11, 1999. See: Henri Cordier, Bibliotheca Sinica Dictionnaire Bibliographique des ouvrages relatifs a l’Empire chinois, t. III, 2088; De Backer, Augustin & Carlos S.J. Sommervogel, Bibliotheque de la Compagnie de Jesus. Bibliographie, tome I, p.706; Donald F. Lach, ?Edwin J. Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, Volume III: A Century of Advance (book 4: East Asia). University of Chicago Press, 1998; Glenn Joseph Ames, ?Ronald S. Love, Distant Lands and Diverse Cultures: The French Experience in Asia, 1600-1700. Praeger, 2003 – pp. 202, 219; Howgego A142; Salmaslian, Armenag, Bibliographie de l’Armenie, (1946), p. 238; Walravens, Hartmut, China illustrata., Das europaische Chinaverstandnis im Spiegel des 16. bis 18. Jahrhunderts. Mit einem Beitrag von David E. Mungello. Ausstellung im Zeughaus der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbuttel vom 21. Marz bis 23. August 1987. (Ausstellungskataloge der Herzog-August-Bibliothek Nr. 55), Wolfenbuttel: Herzog August Bibliothek, 1987, 55. (1691).