DIEPPE.

2 volumes, 4to, pp. xvi, 31, 95, and 4 large folding engraved plans; 61 pages, 1 leaf (blank), and 2 folding engraved plans. Collection: later half calf and marbled paper boards, plates a little browned in the margins and with faint dampstain, armorial bookplate of the Comte d’Armaille. Lamblardie: modern half calf and marbled paper sides, upper border of second plate just shaved, both plates with stain at foot.

FIRST EDITION. In 1776 a new channel or fairway was proposed into the port of Dieppe, and the plan was approved by a committee which included Perronet. In 1787 detailed plans were drawn up and approved by a committee, this time not including Perronet who was unwell. Before long the plan ran into trouble, not least with the problem of moving shingle. In 1789 the present Collection de Mémoires was published, illustrated with some very large engraved plans, pointing out the problems with the old jetties and the advantages of the new channel. This project was part of the plan to construct a major port in the English Channel, first promoted in the 17th century by Louis XIV. Dieppe had always been an important port, but eventually it was the comparatively minor port of Cherbourg that was developed as the major Channel port at the beginning of the 19th century. Lamblardie’s Mémoire was supposed to have been included in the Collection (it is listed in the table of contents, albeit with a slightly different title), but it was omitted. Instead Lamblardie had it published at Le Havre as a separate work, and for self-evident reasons the two are rarely found together. The two copies of the Collection in the Bibliothèque nationale collate as the present copy (but both have only three plates). CCfr gives the author as François Laurent Lamandé, or in one entry as R.-F. Chaubry. It was reprinted at Rouen in 1790, again without Lamblardie’s Mémoire.