Lapérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de

John Greene (University of Louisville)

Ed. by Síofra Pierse, University College Dublin
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.04: French Writing and Culture: Eighteenth-Century and the Enlightenment, 1700-1800.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge), Síofra Pierse (University College Dublin), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

Born 1741
Died 1788
Activity 1756-1788

Places

Active in France; Solomon Islands

Activities

Primary

Explorer
Explorer (scientific)

Other

Writer / Author

Resources

de Galaup's Works

Save to Bookshelf

A matter of hours before his execution in 1793, Louis XVI is reported to have asked if there had been any news of Lapérouse, leader of an expedition to the Pacific Ocean which had left France in 1785. For a beleaguered monarch to have been so preoccupied with the whereabouts of this navigator is an indicator of the manner in which this voyage of exploration had caught the imagination of France, and indeed, much of Europe. Some forty years after it disappeared, evidence of the fate of the expedition was traced to the island of Vanikoro, part of the Solomon Islands, and the mystery was, to a certain degree, solved. But to view Lapérouse and his expedition to the Pacific solely in terms of the mystery of his disappearance is to underestimate the great value of his achievements, and he…

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3025 words

Citation: Greene, John. "Lapérouse, Jean-François de Galaup, comte de". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 11 August 2021 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14631, accessed 24 November 2024.]