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HISTORIE DES AVANTURIERS... LES INDES - 1686 PIRATES
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HISTORIE DES AVANTURIERS... LES INDES - 1686 PIRATES
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HISTOIRE DES AVANTURIERS QUI SE SONT SIGNALEZ DANS LES INDIES... Tome Second (VOLUME TWO ONLY!) Paris: Chez Jacques Le Febure, 1686 Full leather with raised spine 4" x 6 1/2". 8" x 11" folding map of Panama (Listhme de Panama, 1686), and a small folding plate of spears. (4) 384 (22) (2)p. Original owners name and date (1687) on inside of front cover. Wear to the corners and most of the leather has chipped off the spine. The entire text and the map are in extremely good condition! As with all of my rare items I am starting this book at $9.99 with NO RESERVE!
First French edition of one of the most famous books of the period, Exquemelin's account of the adventures, life, morals, looting, plundering, and taking prisoners for ransom or slavery of the pirates roaming the seas in the later part of the seventeenth century, together with a description of the Caribbean where they mainly operated. Our prevailing image of the pirate is based on the buccaneer, or filibuster, active in the West Indies in the later 17th century. The story of Alexandre Olivier Oexmelin is the earliest first-hand account on these pirates, written by just such a one of these reluctant desperadoes, from which all others seem to spring. Alexandre Olivier Exquemelin (1646-1717), called Oexmelin by the French, was long considered to be a Dutchman, as the first edition of his seminal and now extremely rare book De Americaensche Zee-Roovers (The Buccaneers of America) published in Amsterdam 1678 was in Dutch. But Exquemelin was born in 1646, at the Northern French port of Honfleur, descending from Huguenot apothecaries. He started his eventful life as a chemist before spending several years with the pirates as a ship's surgeon. He took part in their daring exploits, like the expeditions of the notorious English buccaneer Henry Morgan, one of the most famous names in the annals of piracy (called John in the book), including his raid on Maracaibo in 1669, or a year later his attack on Panama. By 1674 Exquemelin had joined the Dutch Navy, serving with De Ruyter's fleet in the wars against the French. Following the Admiral's death in 1667 he returned to Amsterdam, where at last he stayed long enough to be granted citizenship and to gain his qualification as a ship surgeon in October 1679. Meanwhile he also offered his manuscript containing the description of his previous life to the publisher's Ten Hoorn, who translated it, adapted it to Dutch standards and printed it in 1678. The book became immediately so popular that editions were published everywhere. Hardly any book in any language became the parent of so many imitations and the source of so many legends, being still is popular today. Jan ten Hoorn also had published the works of Hendrik Smeeks (probably one of the sources of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe). Both publications were heavily edited by ten Hoorn, explaining the similarities of style, so that once is was believed that Exquemelin was a pseudonym of Smeets. The book quickly took on a life of its own, with numerous editions appearing throughout Europe in the following years, many of them fittingly 'pirated', including the Second Edition of 1679, in German, published in Nuremburg under the title Die Americanischen See-Raüber. A Spanish Edition followed in 1681, titled Piratas de la America; this too was probably published in Amsterdam and not Germany as the title-page claims. The first English edition, aptly published by one William Crook, appeared in 1684 under the title Bucaniers of America: Or, a True Account of the Most Remarkable Assaults Committed of late Years upon the Coasts of The West-Indies…. with a heavy emphasis on the 'unparallel'd Exploits of Sir Henry Morgan, the English Jamaican Hero'. The book was a runaway bestseller and the second edition came out within three months. Exquemelin set sail in 1681 aboard the 'San Jeroboam' bound for Jamaica. He set up as a surgeon on San Domingo in the Spanish West Indies. This proved uncongenial, and when in 1683 the Spanish tried to capture the slaver 'Martha en Maria' of Ostend... 
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