[Jean-Baptiste Tavernier] A collection of several Relations & Treatises

Singular & Curious, of John Baptista Tavernier, Baron of Aubonne. Not Printed among his first Six Voyages. (...) Published by Edmund Everard, Esquire. London, Printed by A. Godbid and J. Playford for Moses Pitt, 1680. (24),66,(2),87,(5) p., half leather with marbled boards, corners reinforced with leather, spine with gilt title on black and gilt decoration, advertisement before the title, dedication with 2 engraved vignettes, text with decorative capitals, folding map of The Isles of Japon with a smaller map of Tunquin and 5 folding plates related to the kingdom of Tunquin, 4to.

Binding worn, leather on spine slightly dry and damaged to edges, front board slightly tender along bottom, endpapers with ex libris of Sir Alexander Don (with family motto Non deerit alter) and ex libris of John Waldie and stickers, book and several folding plates partly stained, text here and there less bright and several other minor defects. First English edition. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605-1689) was a jeweller and traveller, famous for his six voyages to Persia and India and his account thereof, Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1676). This work is an addition to the former, in which he relates of Japan and Tonquin (in the north of present-day Vietnam), which was then under Dutch rule. Part of the book is dedicated to "the Government of the Hollanders in Asia"; because Tavernier in his travels had rubbed shoulders with the Dutch multiple times, his analysis is not always very forgiving towards these colonial rulers...