Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes Occidentales; Contenant une Relation des Differens Peuples qui Habitent les Environs du Grand Feuve Saint-Louis, Appellé Vulgairement le Mississippi; leur Religion; leur Gouvernement; leurs Noeurs; leurs Guerres & leur Commerce

Paris: Chez le Jay, 1786. Second edition, two parts in one. 12mo, pp xx, 244, [4], 264 pp, with with four engraved plates after designs by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. Fine copy in a later full-calf binding with red spine label. Jean Bernard Bossu was a French naturalist who traveled widely in the then-vast territory of Louisiana during several trips made between 1751 and 1772. According to Howgego (B138), "Bossu went out to Louisiana in 1850 as a captain of the marines, and from 1751 was stationed in the Illinois country where he was adopted by the Quapaw Indians. He returned to France for health reasons in 1757, and in 1758 sailed for Mobile, where he was befriended by the Alibamu Indians. The second journey was made in 1758-62, and the last in 1771-72. His journeys included a number of trips into the interior, during which he made a study of [several tribes of] Indians. Bossu's Nouveaux Voyages aux Indes Occidentales appeared in three editions, each enlarged to take account of this latest travels. His second narrative, published in 1768, comprises a series of twenty-one letters...describing his life in the travels in Louisiana country from 1751-1762." Streeter (1518): "Bossu wrote well and his letters not only give an interesting picture of life and travels in the Mississippi Valley and the Mobile country to the east at the beginning of the second half of the eighteenth century, but incorporated also are many sketches of events of the preceding years. Bossu came to New Orleans only thirty-three years or so after its founding and only eighty years after La Salle’s journey down the Mississippi, and first and second hand recollections were still fresh." Sabin 6465; Howes B-626; Field pp 38-39; Graff 361; Hubach p. 13.