first edition With 5 engraved plans and charts. Without folding map issued with some copies. xxviii, 470; [x], 522 pp. 2 vols. 8vo
1814 · Philadelphia
by Lewis, Meriwether, and William CLARK
Philadelphia: Bradford and Inskeep, 1814. First edition. With 5 engraved plans and charts. Without folding map issued with some copies. xxviii, 470; [x], 522 pp. 2 vols. 8vo. Modern half morocco, spines gilt, t.e.g. Lacking folding map, tiny losses at site of contemporary ownership signature at head of title volume 1, bleed through of same to the following few leaves, foxed as usual. First edition. With 5 engraved plans and charts. Without folding map issued with some copies. xxviii, 470; [x], 522 pp. 2 vols. 8vo. First edition of the definitive account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. First edition of the first authorized and complete account of the Lewis and Clark expedition, possibly the most important western expedition undertaken in U.S. history, demonstrating as it did the feasibility of traveling overland to the Pacific, and paving the way for numerous overland expeditions and eventual settlements to come. The journal of Patrick Gass, a sergeant in the party, had already been published, but this definitive account of the expedition was edited from the journals of Lewis and Clark, first by Nicholas Biddle and then by Paul Allen, who is credited as the editor on the title-page. Fewer than 2,000 copies were printed, some of which were issued with a folding map not in this copy. Graff 2477; Howes L-317; PMM 272; Wagner-Camp 13:1
(Inventory #: 310856)