First editions of three of Breton´s texts on the Carib´s language, the first published works on the Caribbean language, all extremely rare, especially to be found bound together, all written as instructions for priests preparing for missionary work in the West Indies.
Breton was a French Dominican missionary active in the West Indies, he spent 20 years from 1635 working amongst the native population of the Antilles, where he acquired a knowledge of their language and their costumes. From 1641 to 1651, he lived with the Kalinagos and the Garifunas, in Dominica, whose language he learned. He also traveled to the West Indies to evangelize the indigenous populations there. What he learned he passed on to younger missionaries back in France from 1654 onwards. Aside from these, Breton also wrote a history of the beginnings of the Dominican Order´s missions among the Caribbean Indians, though unpublished until much later. The first book in this sammelband includes a dedicatory epistle to Mr. Claude André Lecler and a letter to the Reverend Fathers Missionaries which do not appear in all copies, and the third work is illustrated withwoodcut representing the crucifixion.
The sammelband concludes with the “Petit Catechisme ou sommaire des trois premieres parties de la Doctrine Chrestienne… en la langue des Caraibes”, also published in Auxerre in 1654.
Breton also produced the Grammaire Caraibe (1667), published immediately after these, which probably tells us the sammelband was bound right after the publication of the Petit Catechisme, however, in any case, these are all separate works, complete in their own right and treated independently bibliographically.
“A lexicographical production of extreme rarity. The author, a Dominican, was superior of the Monastery of Preaching Friars at Blainville; and one of the first four French missionaries deputed to the Island of Gardeloupe, now called Gaudeloup, and the Caribee Islands in America.” (Sabin).
“Breton, of the Order of Preachers; was one of the earliest French Missionaries to the West Indies. His works have become very scarce, and are all the more valuable as the knowledge of the Carrib language is almost lost, and they are the only works to shew the language spoken before the arrival of Europeans.” (Maggs, A selection of books manuscripts bindings and autograph letters, remarkable for their interest & rarity. Catalogue no 555, item 31).
Provenance: Esperon de Beauregard, ownership inscriptions, probably Jacques Esperon de Beauregard, Councilor of the Roy, elected in the election of Niort, Farmer General of the lands of Roussière (Beugné).
Although somewhat well represented in institutions, the book is extremely rare on the market.
Brunet, I, 1225; Dampierre, 49; Leclerc, I, 211; Sabin, 7740, 7739, 7742.
