Comme on Dîne â Paris & Comme on Dîne Partout

Arago, Jacques. Comme on Dîne â Paris & Comme on Dîne Partout. 2 works bound in 1 volume, 1842

ARAGO, Jacques [Jacques Étienne Victor (1790-1855)]

[Two works bound in one volume]

1. Comme on Dîne â Paris
Paris : Berquet et Petion, 1842. First edition.

2. Comme on Dîne Partout
Paris: La Librairie Curieuse de Bohaire, [1842]. First edition. Printed by Bourgogne et Martinet, Paris.

Duodecimo (160x100mm) contemporary quarter bound, dark brown shagreen; raised bands, spine in five gilt ruled, decorated and lettered compartments; decorative paper boards, marbled end-papers, all edges speckled red; xviii,[3],21-291,[1]pp + viii,9-202pp. In French.

Small bookplate "Ex libris Jacques & Helene Bon" to front paste-down; head, foot of spine, and board edges faintly rubbed; corners gently bruised; lightly foxed; some faint damp-staining, original wrappers not bound in.


Arago (brother of the physicist and politician Francois Arago) was the official draughtsman on Louis de Freycinet's circumnavigation on the Uranie (1817-1820) visiting South America, Cape Town, East Timor, Australia, many Pacific islands and Hawaii before being ship-wrecked in the Falklands in February 1820.  Best known for his Promenade autour du monde (1822) Arago wrote several other books mostly drawn from his time on the Uranie. 

Here Arago provides first, an amusing collection of anecdotes of Parisian dining habits and experiences in restaurants and at home, in what Oberle describes as "the human comedy and mysteries of Paris", and second, an amusing account of the dining habits of a number of peoples he met on his circumnavigation including the Patagonians & Gauchos of Argentina, the Aborigines of New South Wales, the Chinese, the Papuans, the Negres-Sorciers (Martinique & Reunion), the Marianas Islanders (Guam), Hawaiians, Brazilians, Hottentots and Kaffirs before finishing with a chapter  Repas d'anthropophages, a study of the cannibalistic habits of the Ombaise, the people of the Alor islands, near Timor.

Scarce, particularly bound together.

§  OCLC
§  Vicaire 36; Oberle, Fastes 399.  Not in Simon BG or Bitting