The French Collector: Journal and Letters of Théodore Leschenault, Botanist of the Baudin Expedition translated by Paul Gibbard

Book Description

Secondhand. Very good condition. Minor wear to book corners and edges. Minor mark on top half-title page. Faint mark on tail foredge. Author has inscribed title page. Body text and binding are still very good.

The French botanist Théodore Leschenault (1773–1826) travelled with Nicolas Baudin’s voyage of discovery to Australia in the years 1800 to 1803: his journal and letters vividly record his impressions of the plant life and animals he encountered, along with dramatic and unsettling meetings with Indigenous peoples. Shaped as much by Enlightenment ideas as by his painful experience of the French Revolution, Leschenault weaves through his travelogue reflections on topics ranging from slavery and colonialism to plant systematics and environmental damage.

The French Collector offers the first complete English translation of this journal (including two previously unknown chapters recounting his experiences in Le Havre, Tenerife and Mauritius) and various letters relating to the expedition. This edition also provides extensive explanatory notes and an introduction which details Leschenault’s early life in Burgundy and imprisonment during the Revolution, and sets his activities against the backdrop of French science and exploration in the period. (back cover)