Commerce of the Prairies: or the Journal of a Santa Fé Trader, during Eight Expeditions Across the Great Western Prairies, and a Residence of Nearly Nine Years in Northern Mexico

New York: Henry G. Langley, 1844. First edition, second issue, with a dual New York and London imprint in volume one. 2 steel-engraved frontispieces, 4 wood-engraved plates, and 2 engraved maps (one folding). Small tear to upper right margin of folding map, with loss of 3 x 1 inches piece of map; 3 text vignettes. 320; 318 pp. 2 vols. 12mo. Original gilt cloth. Both volumes rebacked, preserving original spines. Volume two binding without gilt pictorial stamp, thus probably a married set. Overall a good set. First edition, second issue, with a dual New York and London imprint in volume one. 2 steel-engraved frontispieces, 4 wood-engraved plates, and 2 engraved maps (one folding). Small tear to upper right margin of folding map, with loss of 3 x 1 inches piece of map; 3 text vignettes. 320; 318 pp. 2 vols. 12mo. A cornerstone account of the Sante Fe trail, and a landmark book in Western Americana. Often reprinted. The folding map "Indian Territory, Northern Texas, and New Mexico" has been called by Wheat "a cartographic landmark," and J. Frank Dobie calls it a classic "of bedrock Americana."

Gregg was born in 1806 in Tennessee and traveled to Santa Fe for his health in 1831. He traveled the Santa Fe trail several times over the next decade. A keen observer on natural history and human culture, Commerce of the Prairies contains many accounts of not only geography, botany, and geology, but also the culture and artifacts of the native people of the region. Wagner-Camp 108:1; Howes G401; Graff 1659; Sabin 28712; Streeter 378; Wheat (Transmississippi) 482; Streeter Texas 1502a; Dobie p.76; Flake 3716; Rader 1684; Rittenhouse 255