PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF EXPLORATIONS AND INCIDENTS IN TEXAS, NEW MEXICO, CALIFORNIA, SONORA AND CHIHUAHUA, CONNECTED WITH THE UNITED STATES AND MEXICAN BOUNDARY COMMISSION, DURING THE YEARS 1850, '51, '52, AND '53.
Bartlett, John R.:
New York. 1854. Two volumes bound in one. [2],xxii,506pp. plus plates, folding map, and [6]pp. of ads; [2],xvii,[1],624pp. plus plates. Folding frontispiece in each volume. Later green cloth, spine gilt. Cloth lightly worn at spine ends and corners. Closed tear in folding map repaired by tape on verso, light offsetting from frontispieces onto titlepages, as usual. Light dampstain in lower margin of about half the text and plates. Withal, a very good copy, with the bookplate of historian and carto-bibliographer Carl Wheat on the front pastedown. First edition of this cornerstone work of southwestern travel and exploration. The expedition left Indianola in September 1850 and spent nearly three years travelling throughout the region in an effort to determine the border between the United States and Mexico, which had been left indefinite by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo after the Mexican War. The resultant work remains one of the most readable and accurate accounts of the American Southwest for the period, and the illustrations include some of the most competent depictions of the area. The large folding map shows the region in detail. Various bibliographies record different numbers of illustrations and plates for this edition, and there are also differences between the printed lists of illustrations included in the two volumes and the plates that were actually published. The wood-engravings and lithographs in this set match those in the two copies found at the Beinecke Library. "Bartlett's NARRATIVE is an essential book for the southwest..." - Graff. Bartlett later became the first librarian of the John Carter Brown Library. GRAFF 198. HOWES B201. FLAKE 325. WAGNER-CAMP 234:1. STREETER SALE 173. ABBEY 658. HILL 74. CLARK III:272. WHEAT GOLD REGIONS 252. COWAN, p.36. RAINES, p.22. RADER 287. POWELL SOUTHWESTERN CENTURY 9. SABIN 3746.
(Item ID: WRCAM25905A) $1,500.00