CARVER (Jonathan).

Travels Through the Interior Parts of North America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768...

THIRD & BEST EDITION

Third edition. Frontispiece portrait, five plates (four coloured), and two partially coloured folding maps. 8vo. Contemporary tree calf, gilt leather label, rebacked with original spine laid down, corners renewed, lacquered. Early 19th-century ownership signature on front free endpaper, light foxing. Very good. [4], 22, [22], 543, [1], [20]pp. London, 1781.

£4,000.00

A classic of American travel, in the third and best edition, with expanded text, a biographical sketch of the author, an index, and the added plate of the tobacco plant not found in the first two editions. Carver travelled farther west than any Englishman before the Revolution, going as far as the Dakotas, exploring the headwaters of the Mississippi and passing over the Great Lakes. The text contains the first published mention of the word “Oregon.” The author comments on the Indigenous people he encountered, as well as offering observations on natural history. The tobacco plant plate is handsomely coloured. An important source book and stimulus for later explorers, especially Mackenzie and Lewis and Clark. This is the second issue, according to Howes, with the index.

Greenly Michigan, 21; Howes, C215 “b”; Field, 251; Sabin, 11184; Vail, 670.

Stock No.
224060