Beschrijving van Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indien. Vervattende een Naukeurige en uitvoerige verhandelinge van Nederlands Mogentheyd [...] met meer dan thien honderd en vyftig Prentverbeeldingen verrykt...

"The most comprehensive work on Asia published in Europe during the early colonial period" (Landwehr). The first book to give a comprehensive account in text and illustration, of the peoples, places, and natural history of Indonesia" (Bastin & Brommer).

Volume I, part I contains the preliminary matter plus the Philippines and Acapulco;
- volume I, part II covers the Moluccas;
- volume II and volume III, part 1 cover Amboina;
- volume III, part 2 covers Amboina, Celebes, Borneo, and Further India;
- volume IV, part 1 contains Java;
- volume IV, part 2 contains Java, Surratt, China, Formosa, and Valentijn's 1726 voyages;
- volume V, part 1 covers Coromandel, Persia, Malaya, Sumatra, and Ceylon;
- volume V, part 2 covers Malabar, Japan, Cape of Good Hope, and Mauritius.

The book is lavishly illustrated with 266 engraved plates and maps, most double-page or folding, some with several views, a few conjoined, with engraved illustrations in the text, illustrations by F. Ottens, J.C. Philips, J. Goeree, G. Schoute, O. Eliger, D. & W. Jongman, L. Lamsvelt, N.F. Diamaer, and J. Ledeboer, mainly after drawings by M. Balen.

Five folio volumes in eight luxury later half leather bindings, 266 plates and maps, a folding portrait of the author, an allegorical title and engraved dedication leaf with vignette, numerous text illustrations (two full-page), and 9 folding tables.

Overall, all plates and maps are in excellent condition, unless otherwise stated. The book block is 37 x 23.5 cm.

Volume 1; complete, in excellent condition with just some minor professional restorations;
Volume 2; complete with minor professional restorations;
Volume 3-1: complete, some very light marginal water staining in the lower right corner, mainly of the first 100 pages;
Volume 3-2; complete, with some foxing on the title page;
Volume 4-1; The plates 1,2,3,6,10,11 and 13 make up a large map of Java; ‘NIEUWE EN ZEER NAAUKEURIGE KAART VAN T EYLAND JAVA MAJOR OF GROOT JAVA verdeeld in feven byzondere beftekken door FRANCOIS VALENTYN. V.D.M / J. VAN BRAAM et G. ONDER DE LINDEN. Measures: (each sheet) 463 x 261 mm. The total size, if joined, exceeds 1.75 meters in width. -- Missing three portraits of governors (Abraham van Riebeek, Hendrik Swaardekroon and Matthvs de Haan. The map on page 26 with professionally restored tear. Two maps of Batavia, which are not typically included in this work, are added as extra plates.
-- Plan der Stad en ‘t Kasteel BATAVIA. Aanwyzing der Stad en Kasteels Punten... by Peter Conradi. This decorative plan (212 x 273 mm / 8.3 x 10.7 inches) shows the City and its immediate environs, the surrounding rice fields intersected by a network of waterways, canals and outlying fortifications. With a numbered key (1-27).
The plan was engraved by A. van Krevelt of Amsterdam in 1780 and published by Peter Conradi in " Batavia, de Hoofdstad van Neerlands O. Indiën..." See: Brommer, B., Historische plattegronden van Nederlandse stedenHistorische plattegronden van Nederlandse steden. Alphen aan de Rijn, 1992.
-- Reede van Batavia by M. Sallieth, dated 1779. 22 x 29cm.
Volume 4-2: Complete, with some water stains throughout the book, particularly in the top right corner.
Volume 5-1: Complete only plate 32, which is upside down.
Volume 5-2: Complete but with waterstains in the top part of the second half of the book. 

François Valentijn, a native of Dordrecht in Holland, studied at the universities of Leiden and Utrecht. Valentijn lived in the East Indies for a total of 16 years, first employed at the age of 19 by the V.O.C. (i.e., the Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, or the Dutch East India Company) as minister to the East Indies, and later returning to serve as an army chaplain on an expedition in eastern Java.
He finally returned to his native Dordrecht and produced the Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën (1724 1726), a massive work of five parts published in eight volumes and containing over one thousand engraved illustrations and some of the most accurate maps of the Indies of the time. Valentijn probably had access to the V.O.C. s archive of maps and geographic trade secrets, which they had always guarded jealously.
The work encompasses Dutch exploration and commercial ventures in the East Indies, as well as Dutch settlements in China, Japan, parts of the Near and Middle East, the Philippines, Ceylon, and the Cape of Good Hope.

Valentijn includes accounts of the voyages of Abel Tasman in 1642-1643 and of Willem de Vlamingh to the western coast of Australia in 1696-1697. The wealth of fine maps and views includes a folding map of Australia showing Tasman's route, the first published view of Tasmania, and of Western Australia (Dampier, which provides for only coastal profiles). Additionally, there is an especially fine, large "Tabula Indiae Orientalis et regnorum adjacentium", which includes Australia.
The part includes the earliest views of Tasmania, while the view of Vlamingh consists of the first representation of the black swan (in volume III) with his ship at anchor at the mouth of the Swan.

 Valentijn probably had access to the V.O.C.'s archive of maps and geographic trade secrets, which they had always guarded with great care. Valentijn's "Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën" was published at the same time that many of the VOC charts were first published, one signal of the decline of Dutch dominance in the spice trade.

The first two volumes were published in Dordrecht and Amsterdam in 1724, followed by the subsequent three volumes in 1726. This work comprises geographical and ethnological descriptions of the Moluccas and the trading contacts of the Dutch V.O.C. throughout Asia.

With 650 subscribers, it was "the first book to give a comprehensive account, in text and illustration, of the peoples, places and natural history of Indonesia' (Bastin & Brommer). Valentijn’s work remains a significant source for historical studies on the Dutch East Indies, particularly for the natural history of the Moluccas.
Valentijn included descriptions of Ambonese animals in "Oud en Nieuw Oost-Indiën" by Rumphius, while Rumphius’s original, unpublished manuscript was later lost.
In 1754, Valentijn’s part on sea flora and fauna was separately published in Amsterdam and translated into German some twenty years later.

References: Landwehr (VOC), 467; Cordier (Indosinica), 927-930; Cordier (Japonica), 426-428; Mendelssohn II, 535; Tiele II, 1121; Nissen (ZBI), 4213.; E.M. Beekman, Fugitive Dreams: An Anthology of Dutch Colonial Literature, pp. 55-80; Thomas Suárez, Early Mapping of Southeast Asia, pp. 232-237.