Controversial 16th century adventurer Samuel de Champlain wrote two of the most fascinating travel books in history, chronicling the exploration and mapping of much of North America and the founding of New France. did.
Both books (Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Contains different versions and incomplete copies of both books. (maps, etc.) have been selling at auction for over $100,000 for 30 years, so when one of the few known complete versions of Champlain's Voyages (published in 1613) went up for auction at Christie's last week. It is the world's second most expensive travel book and one of the world's most valuable scientific documents, selling for $1,320,500.
De Champlain was born into a nautical family, and his practical education in all relevant skills began from birth. Both his father and uncle were sea captains, and de Champlain, who spent his childhood watching his role models undertake countless difficult voyages and overcome the odds, was inspired to venture into the unknown. It seems like he learned the tenacity, resilience, and necessary skills needed to make his way. One of his skills, cartography, allows him to influence the course of history.
The great wealth that his uncle amassed as a ship owner and captain is thought to have come at least in part from “private management” for the French royal family, which led to a clear relationship between the king and the Champlain family. But it may provide one explanation for an unexplained relationship.
Samuel de Champlain inherited his uncle's entire estate in 1601, just two years before he was granted a pension by the king, after managing his uncle's shipping company for 24 months during a period of poor health. . No explanation is given as to the reason for the pension, and it was given before Samuel's work in the New World began.
Was Samuel de Champlain the illegitimate son of King Henry IV of France?
There is much debate among historians about de Champlain's rapid rise to fame, with some assuming that he was the illegitimate son of King Henry IV of France. It's an interesting story with only circumstantial evidence, so I'll leave it to others to pursue it.
Wherever he learned a skill, he learned it well.
According to the university, “Samuel de Champlain's cartography marked the beginning of detailed mapping of the Atlantic coast north of Nantucket Sound to the St. Lawrence River valley and, generally, the eastern Great Lakes.” There is. History of Chicago Cartography. We can gain some perspective on the importance of de Champlain's work in that he gets his own chapter.
The previous highest price for a complete edition of The Voyages of Champlain and Champlain was sold in December 2009 for $758,000 at auction at Drea Watts Bloomsbury (New York), when a copy of the famous Siebert sold for $758,000. I was holding it. Copying his one of the top 50 scientific papers of all time, this new sale for $1,320,500 puts the book back in the top 50. Siebert's copy was sold for $360,000 at a Sotheby's auction in New York in May 1999, making it on the list of the most expensive scientific documents of all time.
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From the Sotheby's auction description for the book: One of the most important works of the 17th century, remarkable for its content and execution, it was created by a talented naturalist, artist (trained as a portraitist in France), skilled cartographer, And it's the work of a man who is an empathetic ethnographer. Samuel de Champlain's account of the voyages of 1604, 1610, 1611, and 1613 is an important story of the exploration, covering vast areas with unprecedented detail and accuracy, while also describing the flora. The story is further enhanced by the author's vivid illustrations that document the maps of the world. and animals of the new world. The rare illustrations in his Carte Geographique de la Nouvelle Franse depict the artist's depictions of new species, giving a hint of the diverse and vast natural resources found in the New World. Armstrong described this monumental mapping effort as “not the work of bureaucrats, but of skilled psychologists, promoters, and politicians… His 1612 map of Champlain is the best of Canada's “This is an important piece of historical cartography.”
The maps that originally accompanied the volumes of Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois (1613) and Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France Occidentale, dicte Canada (1632) are now of great value in their own right. are on sale regularly. Separate charges will apply if the amount is abnormal.
In November 2008, Sotheby's sold the map, previously part of Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois (1613), for $232,900 (£157,250), originally part of Les Voyages de la Nouvelle France. We sold maps that were part of “Occidentale”. dicte Canada' (1632) (but without the book), the same one in which the subject of this article was sold, sold for $100,800 at Christie's auction in 2024.
This leads to the title “The world's most expensive travel book”.
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Various books have claimed to be the “world's most expensive travel book'', starting with Bloomsbury's International selling Siebert's The Voyage of Champlain for $758,000 in 2009. have been submitted numerous times over the years.
We believe that the claim is correct, unless Claudius Ptolemy's Cosmographia (also known as Geographia) and Battista Agnese's Portlan Atlas of the World are considered travel books. Limited.
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The “Cosmographia” was indeed the first “atlas,” but Ptolemy (along with Marinus of Tyre around 100 AD) created the atlas form and used it to describe the first unified, structured view of the world. There is a strong argument that the intent was: There was no doubt that I would create a travel book, even if it created a whole new category of books. Encyclopedia Britannica characterizes “cosmographia” as “a clear and detailed image of the inhabited world as known to the inhabitants of the Roman Empire at its height.”
Lord Wardington's copy of Ptolemy's Cosmographia sold for $3,966,804 (£2,139,000) at Sotheby's London auction in 2006, while Kenneth Nebenzahl's copy of Agnese's Portlan Atlas of the World , which sold for $2,770,500 at a Christie's auction in April 2012. By definition, it is a tool for travelers, even water travelers.
Excluding these books, Les Voyages du Sieur de Champlain Xaintongeois, which sold for $758,000 in 2009, becomes the world's most expensive travel book, followed by Cristoforo's Liber Insularum Archipelangi, which was sold by Christie's New York. exceeded the price. Buondelmonti published his April 2012 book for $1,762,500. Since then, no other travel book has cost more than this amount.
david roberts Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, Nubia is a richly illustrated travelogue of 19th century Palestine, often titled in articles as “the world's most expensive travel book,'' but the book actually cost more than $338,500. Never sold (Sotheby's 2008). The illustrations in this book are exceptional.
Finally, we have discussed atlases and travel books, but one more element of cartography clearly remains: the globe and the orrery.
The most expensive globe ever sold at auction was once owned by Sultan Murad III of the Ottoman Empire. The globe, 29.6 cm (11.7 inches) in diameter, was sold at auction at Christie's (London) in October 1991 for $1,778,486 (£1,023,000), compared to his estimated price of £400,000 and his estimate of £600,000.
If you're interested in Samuel de Champlain's work, you can read the entire book (in French) at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, or take a closer look at the main illustrations at Canada's McGill Library.
