The Rowan Gibbs Book Collection
Thursday, 16 November - Thursday, 14 December 2023

Monsieur de Catalde - Le Paysan Gentilhomme

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Lot Details

Ou, Avantures de M. Ransav, Le paysan gentilhomme, ou, Avantures de M. Ransav, avec son voyage aux Isles jumelles, par Monsieur de Catalde. Second edition. A Paris, Chez Pierre Prault, Quay de Gevres, au Paradis, 1738. Two volumes, [2],107;[2],120pp., small 8vo, bound together in later quarter roan, marbled boards. Light browning to text. A rare picaresque novel in French, first published the previous year, that includes an imaginary voyage to the “Jumelles”, twin small islands in the South Pacific, one a monarchy and the other a republic, whose systems of government are contrasted by the author. Howgego in his Encyclopedia of Exploration Part 5: Invented and Apocryphal Narratives of Travel identifies the Jumelles as the Three Kings Islands, Manawatāwhi, north of Cape Reinga. They had been sighted and named by Abel Tasman in 1643 and were familiar to readers in Europe from the early published accounts of Tasman’s voyage: E.H. McCormick’s Tasman and New Zealand, A Bibliographical Study lists twelve works published before 1737 that give an account of Tasman’s New Zealand voyage. A German translation of the novel was published in 1740 but it has never been translated into English. Catalde wrote one other book, Mémoires de Monsieur le comte de Claize (1738), but almost nothing is known of him. Gove, Imaginary Voyages in Prose Fiction p.300; Manguel & Gaudalupi, The Dictionary of Imaginary Places pp.334-3; Howgego C14.

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