A French voyage to the Levant 1722

Jean de la Roque

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• About the artwork
  Voyage de Syrie et du Mont-Liban.
  Paris, André Cailleau, 1722. 2 volumes. 12mo. With 9 engraved plates (5 folding), including a folding map showing the course of the Orontes river; dedication with woodcut coat of arms of De Fleury. Contemporary sprinkled calf, gold-tooled spines with gilt-stamped crest of Henry Edward Bunbury.
  
  First edition of a narrative detailing La Roque's travels in the Levant (1688-89). The work includes descriptions of the ruins at Baalbek, the customs of the various regional tribes, and an account of the life of Francois Galaup de Chasteuil (based on Marchetti's La vie de monsieur de Chasteuil), a French-born Maronite who lived in Mount Lebanon. The plates depict the Lebanon cedar, coins, and elevations of Baalbek ruins.
  La Roque studied oriental languages and was the son a merchant from Marseille who was one of the first to introduce coffee to France. Later travels took La Roque to Arabia and Yemen in order to purchase coffee.
  Spines restored. Very good set, from the library of the historian and soldier Henry Edward Bunbury with his bookplate on upper pastedown.
  Atabey 674; Chadenat 7064; not in Blackmer.
• About the artist
  Jean de la Roque (1661 – December 8, 1745) was a French traveller and journalist born in Marseille. Jean de la Roque was the author of Voyage en Syrie et au mont Liban (1722), a book about his experiences in the Levant, which he visited in 1689 for the first time. This work describes the customs of the various regional tribes, and provides information on the ruins at Baalbek. In 1708-10 and 1711-13 he took part on two expeditions to the Arabian peninsula, and afterwards published his Arabian experiences in Voyage dans l’Arabie heureuse (1716). In this tract he gives a detailed account of coffee plantations and the coffee trade in Yemen.