Percement de l'Isthme de Suez. Exposé et Documents Officiels.

DE LESSEPS, Ferdinand.

Edité par Paris, Henri Plon, 1855

A propos de cet article

First edition, presentation copy, inscribed "de la part de l'auteur" on the upper wrapper. In 1832, while quarantined on his voyage to Alexandria to take up the post of vice-consul, de Lesseps passed the time by reading a copy of Lepère's report to Napoleon on the practicability of a canal connecting the Mediterranean with the Red Sea. Having befriended Mohammed Said, the viceroy's son and later himself viceroy, during his time in Egypt, on his resignation from the consular service in 1854 de Lesseps obtained the concession for the construction of a canal across the Isthmus of Suez. Undeterred by the practical and political objections he set about seeking capital to finance the project; "In this treatise of nearly three hundred pages, with maps. he set out the whole case for the canal and his proposed method of building it. He secured the support of Napoleon III and raised a capital of two hundred million francs. Construction was begun in 1859 and completed ten years later" (PMM). Following the lead of Palmerston, the British government had opposed the whole scheme as inimical to British interests, but in 1875 Disraeli, in what Churchill was to describe as a "brilliant stroke", purchased the shares subscribed by the now-bankrupt Khedive with a £4m loan from the Rothschilds. "The route to India was safeguarded, a possible threat to British naval supremacy was removed and-of fateful importance for the future-Britain was inexorably drawn into Egyptian politics" (Churchill, The English-Speaking Peoples). En français dans le texte, 274; Norman, 1336; Printing and the Mind of Man, 339. Octavo. 2 folding maps. Original printed wrappers. Presentation inscription to front wrapper, "De la part de l'auteur". Short vertical splits to spine, sewing still strong, pale dampmark to upper outer corner, just entering printed text in the rear half of the book; a very good copy.

N° de réf. du vendeur 148711

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Percement de l'Isthme de Suez. Exposé et Documents Officiels.
• Éditeur: Paris, Henri Plon, 1855
• Édition: Edition originale
• Signé: Signé par l'auteur