Dutch mercantile enterprise - the definitive edition. The definitive edition of the great early Dutch voyages of exploration. This collection of voyages, many undertaken by the Dutch East India Company (VOC), ranks as a record of some of the most important mercantile adventures in the history of European expansion. Complete sets are rarely found today, many having being split into their constituent parts.

This finely illustrated work is one of the great voyage collections and ranks alongside those of Hakluyt and Purchas. It includes accounts of all the voyages on which the Duyfken, captained by William Jansz, sailed, of great importance as it was the Duyfken which would make the first sighting of the Australian coast.

This is the preferred edition of the work (two editions, far less complete, had previously appeared), with a preface by Commelin, a summary of pre-1631 Dutch voyages, and is superbly illustrated with maps, charts, views of the early settlements, indigenous people, animals, and natural history subjects.

The collection includes: De Veer, Voyages to the North; Houtman, Voyage to the East Indies; Neck, Voyage to the East Indies; Van Noort, Voyage round the World; Neck, Second Voyage; Spilbergen, Voyage to the East Indies; Van Caerden, Voyage to the East Indies; Spilbergen, Voyage round the World; and others. Of particular interest may be mentioned the world voyage of Jacques l'Hermite, which includes the famous Quirós Memorial.

No other work gives such a complete view of the Dutch voyages and the plethora of engraved illustrations really brings these truly extraordinary tales of adventure alive.

Third edition; 21 (separately paginated) parts in 2 vols, landscape folio (20 x 26 cm), first title-page re-margined on lower edge beneath date (no loss), complete with 2 engraved frontispieces and 230 engraved plates (some folding) in vol. I, slight loss to fore-edge pl. 16, Houtman, De Eerste Schipvaerd; also to plates 2 & 8, Van Noort, Beschrijvinge van de Schipvaerd; plate 5, Neck, Tweede Schipvaert, possibly supplied (small margins); expert paper restoration to a strip of lower margin (6 cm x 1 cm at greatest extent) and similar repair to fold, pl. 6, Spilbergen, 't Historiael Journael; in vol. II, Van Den Broecke, Historische ende Journaelesche, plates short on lower margin (as issued?); neat restoration to plates 3 & 10, Oost ende West-Indische Navigatien, later vellum to style, lettered in gilt, yapp edges, occasional light dampstaining (nothing untoward), a very good set.

Bell C443; Landwehr VOC 250, listing three editions (1644 [only 2 copies known], 1645 & 1646); Mendelssohn 1603; Tiele 82; Tiele (Mémoire), pp.13-15; Sabin 14959.