ONE OF THE EARLIEST AMERICAN PUBLISHED SHIPWRECK STORIES

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ONE OF THE EARLIEST AMERICAN PUBLISHED SHIPWRECK STORIES

TRANSLATED BY A WELSH WOMAN

WITH THE RARE ILLUSTRATED FRONTISPIECE BY THE AMERICAN TURNCOAT ENGRAVER JAMES SMITHERS DEPICTING THE CAPTAIN AND HIS BLACK SLAVE

[FLORIDA] [SHIPWRECK] [INDIANS] Viaud, Monsieur Pierre. " "The Surprising, yet Real and True Voyages and Adventures of a French Sea Captain. " "To which is added The Shipwreck, a Sentimental and Descriptive Poem by William Falconer, an English Sailor, with both titles, and the Rare Frontispiece engraved by J. Smithers. Philadelphia, Robert Bell, 1774. 12 mo., 17 x 10 cm.. Description:xii,144,[4],108,[4]p., [1]leaf of plates. Each work has a separate title page and pagination. The first, attributed by Evans to Jean Gaspard Dubois-Fontanelle, is "Translated from the French by Mrs. [Elizabeth] Griffith," and has running title: The adventures of Monsieur Pierre Viaud. Binding: original calf, heavily worn, front board separating. Internally, brown and worn, with some edges tattered, three-quarter inch wormhole to inner beginning of first x-xi and through p. 13 on inner lower margin affecting some letters, some dampstaining, small tear, old stains. last leaf of ads with some loss to margin affecting letters. Despite serious noted condition issues, still complete and an Americana rarity.
The very rare frontispiece, engraved by James Smither, is the only illustration. Smithers was an engraver, seal cutter and printmaker, based in Philadelphia from 1768 to 1778 when he was accused of high treason for counterfeiting currency for English use during the British occupation of Philadelphia. He left for New York City with British troops, advertising his trade in New York newspapers. The translator Elizabeth Griffith (1727 1793) was an 18th-century Welsh-born dramatist, fiction writer, essayist and actress, who lived and worked in Ireland. Additionally it is a Bell imprint. Robert Bell, the Philadelphia printer first published Paine's work.

"Cannibalism exerts a horrified fascination on civilized men, especially accounts of Westerners resorting to anthropophagic practices in circumstances of great hardship. This fascination explains the sensation created by the 1768 publication and the wide dissemination of Pierre Viaud's Naufrage et aventures, now made available in a readable translation by Robin F. A. Fabel. M. Viaud was a French merchant captain who, forced by illness to remain in Saint-Domingue, entered into a partnership with a Haitian resident, M. Desclau, to trade goods to Louisiana. Shipwrecked in February on an island off the coast of Florida, way beyond the French and English outposts, Viaud found himself part of a dwindling band of survivors. The group, originally composed of himself and his black slave, Captain Lacouture with his wife and son, the ship's mate and eight sailors, was soon reduced to Viaud, Mme Lacouture, her son and the slave. A treacherous Indian offered to ferry them to the mainland but, in fact, robbed them of the meagre stores and precious firearms they had managed to salvage from the wrecked vessel. Exhausted by hunger and cold, terrorized by bears or "tigers" (maybe pumas), the little band reverted to savagery. By the time they were rescued by British soldiers from St. Mark's Fort, few of the trappings of civilization had survived the ordeal. Viaud had persuaded (or forced) Mme Lacouture to abandon her son who seemed a few hours away from death. They thought nothing of stripping themselves naked to cross streams or of stuffing themselves with carrion, though it made them deathly sick. Worse of all, driven mad by starvation, the two of them had killed the black slave, eating some of the flesh immediately and preserving the rest as emergency supply. "