The Drake Manuscript in the Pierpont Morgan Library. by Drake, Sir Francis, 1540-1596. Pierce, Charles E. Jr. O'Brian, Patrick. Kraemer, Ruth S., translator. Klinkenborg, V - 1996: Histoire Naturelle des Indes.

André Deutsch Ltd., London [1996]. Preface by Charles E. Pierce, Jr. Foreword by Patrick O'Brian. Introduction by Verlyn Klinkenborg. Translations by Ruth S. Kraemer. Drake was "known to have had French Huguenots on board, and from the hand of one or more of them came the watercolours and accompanying texts of an astonishingly beautiful manuscript, known as the Histoire naturelle des Indes and now held in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. This extraordinary manuscript, here presented in full-colour facsimile with English translations, is a haunting contemporary record of early European encounters with the Americas. This was not the virgin land Drake expected to find but one already shaped and overlaid by two sophisticated cultures, one European (Spanish), the other the now virtually extinct indigenous 'Indians'. Nearly two hundred paintings document plants, animals, fish and birds, as well as daily life and work among the inhabitants...' Hard Cover. xxii, 272 pages. Dust jacket; fine. stock#21469/h.