La vie, les avantures [sic] et le voyage de Groenland du Révérend Pere Cordelier Pierre de Mésange. Avec une relation bien circonstanciée de l’origine, de l’histoire, des moeurs, & du paradis des habitants du Pole Arctique.

2 parts in 1 vol., 12mo: [14]-269-[7]-280 (of 284) pp. (missing: 1 (of 2) front.; text lvs M9 and M10 at the end, dampstained).

Contemp. calf, gilt decorated spine (joint broken, some defects).

Very rare 1st ed. (1st Engl. ed.: 2015!) of a seminal work in fantastic literature. With his literary account of an imaginary voyage to the North Pole, the author is the first to introduce the concept of a Hollow Earth. His shipwrecked sailor and protagonist discovers an island inhabited by the descendants of African colonists who left their homeland four thousand years earlier. This so-called Land of Rufsal extends underground into a secret kingdom, turning the travel account into the first pseudo-scientific description of a journey to the center of the Earth. Tyssot de Patot's imaginary voyage predates Ludvig Holberg's "Niels Klim's Underground Travels" (1741) and Jules Verne's classic "Journey to the Center of the Earth" (1864).
Ref. Barbier IV:997. - Conlon 20:627. - STCN 184570069 (Amst. and The Hague).
Prov. Joseph Debaenne (ms. entry).