[VOYAGE - FOUCHER d'OBSONVILLE]. "Manuscrit d'un voyage en A - Lot 52

[VOYAGE - FOUCHER d'OBSONVILLE]. "Manuscrit d'un voyage en Asie par M. le B.on Foucher d'Obsonville en 1762 & année suivante." Manuscript of 198 pp. from the second half of the 18th century in a large in-4° volume, soft ivory vellum with wide flap, title in ink on the first cover, visible seams on leather pieces on the spine, lakes (period binding). ORIGINAL PARTLY UNEDITED MANUSCRIT of 198 pp. written in brown ink, with some fading, by the French traveler and naturalist, Baron Foucher d'Obsonville (1734 - 1802). Leaving Marseille on January 6, 1762, Foucher d'Obsonville reached Aleppo, then Baghdad, and sailed down the Tigris and Chat-el-Arab rivers to reach the Persian Gulf, from where he set sail for the coast of eastern India. In this "Mémoire de mon voyage en Asie", the author describes the various peoples he met and, above all, the fauna he enjoyed observing (domestic and wild animals). A few years after his return to France, he anonymously published Essais philosophiques sur les moeurs de divers animaux étrangers, avec des observations relatives aux principes & usages de plusieurs peuples. Ou extraits des voyages de M*** en Asie (Paris, Couturier fils, Veuve Tilliard & fils, 1783). He dedicated this work to the great French naturalist Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon. Some damage and missing vellum. See reproductions