SAUSSURE (Horace-Bénédict de). Voyages dans les Alpes, précédés d'un essai sur l'histoire naturelle des environs de Genève.1780

Neuchâtel: Fauche-Borel, Second edition, 8 vols., 8vo (200 x 120 mm), [2], xxiv, 367, [1]; [2], 393, [1]; [2], iv, 411, [1]; [2], 484; [2], xvi, 496; [2], 368, [4]; [2], 528, [4]; [2], 450pp., one folding engraved map and 21 folding engraved plates on 20 sheets, 6 folding tables, some minor water staining to vol. II which effects the upper margin of 2 plates, but overall internally this is a very clean set, nineteenth-century half calf, marbled boards, spines with two red morocco labels lettered in gilt, a very nice set. Horace Bénédict de Saussure (1740–1799) was almost single-handedly responsible for drawing attention to the Alps and particularly Mont Blanc. He first visited Chamonix in 1760 and offered a prize for the first ascent of Mont Blanc, which was climbed (and the prize claimed) in 1786. Saussure reached the summit himself the following year and published Relation abregée d'un Voyage a la Cime du Mont-Blanc, the first published account of the ascent of the mountain. He was considered among the earliest recreational mountaineers and travelers and present work was his magnum opus. Provenance: Armorial bookplate of John Burton Philips of The Heath House, Staffordshire, to each volume.