75/ 972 [Egypt]. Lesseps, F. de. Percement de l'Isthme de Suez, exposé et documents officiels. Paris, H. Plon, 1855, 1st ed., (4),280,(1)p., 2 fold. lithogr. maps, modern green hcalf, orig. wr. pres.

- Stamp on htitle and p.1; maps torn on folds (repaired w. sellotape on verso, shining through); sl. foxed; wrs. sl. soiled.

= PMM 339; Norman, 1336. "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).