Garnier, Marie Joseph Francis

First edition [limited to 800 copies], 4 volumes (2 text volumes and 2 plate volumes), text: large 4to (340 x 250mm.), half-titles, titles in red and black, portrait frontispiece, 1 plate of medals, 12 maps and charts (8 coloured), numerous illustrations (39 full-page), contemporary black morocco, titled in gilt on spine and with previous owner's name 'A. de Montjon' lettered in gilt at the foot of each spine (also with presentation inscription from Montjon to ?Chariot on first text leaf of each vol.), spotted, some leaves dampstained, joints of vol.1 weak; plates (Cartes et plans and Album pittoresque): folio (496 x 370mm.), half-titles, 70 numbered plates, maps and plans on 62 sheets, some double-page, some with more than two or four images, mostly lithographed, 11 coloured, original cloth-backed printed boards, [Cordier Sinica 329; Cordier Indosinica 1012], covers slightly marked

the condition of this lot is as described in the catalogue description
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This finely illustrated work is the official printed record of the most important nineteenth-century exploratory expedition into Indochina.

Garnier was part of the French expedition under Captain Ernest Doudard de Lagrée which set out from Saigon in 1866 to explore the valley of the Mekong River in the hope of finding a navigable route into south-western China. Garnier took command of the mission when de Lagrée died and he safely led the expedition to Shanghai via the Yangtze River. The expedition traversed almost 5,400 miles travelling through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and China, mapping over 3,600 miles of terrain previously unknown to Europeans, and becoming the first westerners to enter Yunnan by a southern route.