Memoires Plucket

FULL DESCRIPTION: Plucket 1843

Pierre-Edouard PLUCKET. Mémoires de Plucket (Pierre-Édouard) de Dunkerque, Ancien Lieutenant de vaisseau et Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur. Dédiés à la marine française.

Paris, bureau central de la France maritime, Librairie encyclopédique de Roret, 1843.

First edition of the greatest rarity, one of perhaps only 200 copies printed (according to Mabille de Poncheville, 1956). OCLC lists BL, BnF, Caen, and Newberry.

(21.5 x 14 cm). [4], v-viii, 420 pp. Late 19th cen. dark green goat spine and black paper covered boards, with raised bands. A brilliant copy of a rare title in excellent condition.

The Mémoires of Pierre-Edouard Plucket (1759-1845) describe the epic adventures of the French Naval officer and privateer, who recounts here a life steeped in the historic events of his time. At the age of 15 he embarked on a fishing vessel for Iceland, then became a corsair to fight the English, was taken prisoner then went back to battle again. Throughout his long and successful career Plucket rose through the ranks and took command of larger and larger ships and broadened his exploits as a privateer.

“…j'ouvris le bal par une rille anglaise avec miss Canedé et son amie intime, miss Franklin, la fille du célèbre américain dont on a dit, qu'il enleva la foudre du ciel comme il arracha le sceptre des mains des tyrans [I opened the ball with an English rille with Miss Canedé and her close friend, Miss Franklin, the daughter of the famous American who is said to have taken lightening from the heavens just as he snatched the scepter from the hands of tyrants]” (p.98).

Dedicated to the French navy, the text naturally provides important observations from Plucket concerning the American War of Independence, the Comte d’Estaing, the Comte de Grasse, Lafayette, Rochambeau, etc., as well as notes on Hampton and Yorktown, Virginia, and Plucket’s time at West-Point, VA., where he was stationed for 11 months. Plucket’s tales are colorful and include accounts of dancing at a ball with Benjamin Franklin’s daughter, a cordial meeting with General Washington during the Revolutionary War at which Plucket took tea in the place of wine (to Washington’s astonishment) out of deference to the ladies present, and naturally numerous first-person tales of adventure and battle on the high seas. Plucket’s memoirs constitute “one of the best sources of the history of the naval combat under the Revolution and the Empire” (Fierro). Polak, 7639. Fierro, 1174.