Beschreibung:

BELLIN, Jean Nicholas (1703-1772). Description Geographique des Isles Antilles possédées par les Anglois. Paris: l'Imprimerie de Didot, 1758. 4° (241 x 195mm). Engraved additional title by Choffard, 13 engraved maps and plans, 8 folding, and 9 engraved vignette views, woodcut tail-pieces (folding maps slightly browned, edges rubbed). Contemporary French mottled calf gilt, boards with borders of triple gilt rules, spine gilt in compartments, morocco lettering-piece in one, others decorated with fleurons (a little rubbed and scuffed, skilfully recornered and rebacked retaining compartments and lettering-piece). FIRST EDITION. NAVAL INTELLIGENCE BY THE FIRST HYDROGRAPHER OF THE FRENCH ROYAL NAVY AND EMINENT CARTOGRAPHER, published at the height of the Seven Years' War with England. Full descriptions, including fortification and armaments, are given of Jamaica, Barbados, Antigua, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, the Virgin Islands, Bahamas and Bermuda. Accompanying each island group is a short history, some with a separate chart, others with an engraved view. As official cartographer Bellin was charged with preparing charts of all known coastlines, many of which were published in atlases, the most famous being his Neptune Frangaise (1753). He also composed the maps for Abbi Prevost's Histoire générale des Voyages and the last maps of New France before it fell to Britain in 1780. Sabin 4553.