Beschreibung:

Sauer, M.[artin] — Par J. Castera (translator)Voyage fait par ordre de l'imperatrice de Russie Catherine II, dans le nord de la Russie asiatique, dans la mer glaciale, dans la mer d'Anadyr, et sur les cotes de l'Amerique, depuis 1785 jusqu'en 1794, par le commodore Billings. Paris: F. Buisson, an X (1802)
2 text volumes, and one atlas volume. Text: 8vo (197 x 125 mm). Half-title to each volume; scattered foxing. Atlas: 4to (282 x 205 mm). Title-page, list of plates, 14 engraved plates, one folding map; some spotting, faint offsetting to map. All uniformly bound in half brown calf and early marbled paper-covered boards, edges stained yellow; restoration to spines, some spotting to edges.
First edition in French, with the atlas volume, of Sauer's work chronicling the Russian Northeast Expedition led by Captain Billings.
Sauer first became acquainted with Joseph Billings in Saint Petersburg in the 1780s. Billings asked Sauer to serve as secretary and translator (or interpreter) on the expedition, and Sauer agreed on the condition that he would be allowed to publish an account of it upon his return. As Lada-Mocarski notes, Sauer was "critical of Billings and sorely disappointed when Billings decided to abandon the idea of going back to the American coast, south of Cook's River" (Arctic Bibliography 37229).
A handsome set.
REFERENCES:Sabin 77153