Beschreibung:

Sagard-Theodat, GabrielHistoire du Canada Et Voyages Que Les Freres Mineurs Recollects Y Ont Faicts Pour La Conversion des Infidelles. Paris: Claude Sonnius, 1636
8vo (157 x 97 mm). Woodcut headpieces and initials; top margins trimmed close cutting into first line of title and shaving some head-lines, browned, some scattered spotting, one or two small marginal tears, four unnumbered pages of Indian music and the blank leaf are present in facsimile. Edges stained red, marbled endpapers; recased preserving much of the original covers and spine. In brown cloth-covered slipcase.
The extraordinarily rare first edition of this early account of Canada.
Rare. Sagard was a Recollect missionary who spent 1623–24 in Canada as a missionary to the Huron nation. This work is considered an extension of his earlier Grand Voyage, which detailed "the travels and missionary labors of the Recollects among the Indians of Canada" (Field). His book, based largely on his own experiences and those of his associates, as well as contemporary letters and documents, is considered to be the main authority for the history of the first Recollect mission in Canada (1615–29), and the main source for Indian life and relations with the French which does not stem from the Jesuits. "Sagard and Champlain were the first explorers to give any very definite statements about the Huron Indian country and what they learned from these Indians about the Great Lakes Country" (Greenly). Also included is his dictionary of the Huron language, and a collection of French expressions translated into Huron, to be used as a manual by traders and missionaries.
REFERENCE:Church 435; European Americana 636/95; Harrisse 62; Sabin 74886
PROVENANCE:George Bancroft (bookplate to front pastedown; signature to title) — Lenox Library (library and "duplicate" stamps to verso of title) — Guthrie Barber (his sale, Parke-Bernet, 22-23 October 1941, lot 1037)