Exploratory Travels through the Western Territories of North America . Performed in the years 1805, 1806, 1807 .

Pike, Zebulon Montgomery.

Verlag: Longman Hurst [et al.], London, 1811

Beschreibung

Quarto, pp. xx, 436. Two maps, one of which is folding. Pike made the first American exploration of the Southwest, under US government auspices: it is consequently the foundation of any collection on that area. Most of this region was Spanish territory at the time,which led to Pike's arrest, with his entire party, above Santa Fe; he was sent to Chihuahua for trial. After considerable delay, and the confiscation of all his notes, maps, etc., he was escorted through Texas back to Louisiana. Pike called attention to the weakness of the Spanish defenses and the importance of the Santa Fe trade. The American first edition came out in 1810 in a very confused textual state; the British edition is much clearer due to the editor, Rees, who, "undertook to brink something like cosmos out of this chaos . by weaving as much as he could of the matter of the Appendixes into the main text, or into the footnotes thereto, thereby greatly reducing the bulk of the appendicial texts." (Coues quoted in Wagner-Camp). The folding map shows some minor foxing, common with this map; otherwise the text is quite clean and fresh. The binding is 19th century 3/4 calf over marbled boards. There is a bookplate on the inside front board, otherwise no markings. Very nice copy. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 5236

Bibliografische Details

Titel: Exploratory Travels through the Western ...

Verlag: Longman Hurst [et al.], London

Erscheinungsdatum: 1811

Einband: Hardcover

Auflage: First British edition.