GRANDPRÉ (Louis-Marie-Joseph O'Hier de). - Lot 66

GRANDPRÉ (Louis-Marie-Joseph O'Hier de). Voyage à la côte occidentale d'Afrique, Fait dans les années 1786 et 1787. Paris: Dentu, An IX - 1801. - 2 volumes in-8, 194 x 121: map, (2 ff.), 32, XXVIII, 226 pp. 7 plates; (2 ff.), 320 pp. 3 plates. Speckled tan calf, gilt roulette framing the boards, smooth spine decorated, speckled yellow edges (period binding). First edition of the Voyage sur la côte occidentale d'Afrique account of the pioneering expedition led in 1786-1787 by Louis-Marie-Joseph O'Hier de Grandpré (1761-1846), shipowner and naval officer, along the west coast of Africa. This ethnographic, political and economic account offers a vivid snapshot of African and colonial realities at a pivotal time, just before the upheavals of the French Revolution. The book contains an in-depth description of the Congo states visited by Europeans. Grandpré provides a detailed analysis of local mores, customs, laws, government structures and business practices. But it is above all his précis on the slave trade that stands out: in it, he unvarnishedly describes the organization, mechanisms and stakes of this human trade as it was practiced before 1789, thus providing a first-hand account of one of the darkest pages in colonial history. The story concludes with a second section devoted to the Cape of Good Hope, where the author provides a military and strategic description of this colony, then an essential crossroads for trade routes between Europe, Asia and Africa. The illustrations consist of a "flat map of the Angola Coast", two plans (Cape of Good Hope and its surroundings, and the Cape citadel), and 8 plates of scenes of customs and portraits of natives, engraved after the author's drawings. A fine copy in contemporary binding. Small loss at head of second volume. Antique label from a public library affixed to the top of the spines.