Notes of a Twenty-five Years' Service in the Hudson's Bay Territory

London: Richard Bentley, 1849. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good. Two volumes. 7.75" x 4.75", pp xii, [13]-308; vii, [1], [9]-328 pp, in original brown blindstamped cloth, spines decorated in gilt, patterned endpapers with publisher's advertisements. Chipping to cloth at spine ends, old repairs visible at joints, but still an attractive set, uncommon in the original cloth. Wagner-Camp 169: "John McLean entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company during the winter of 1820-21 and worked in the Ontario area for the next decade. He was then sent to New Caledonia by way of the Saskatchewan River and to Fort St. James on Stuart's Lake in British Columbia. Streeter finds McLean's style entertaining but the Company's methods of suppressing competition prosecutable under present United States law." Field 996: "the largest portion of these volumes is devoted to the narration of incidents of travel among the Indians of the territory; descriptions of the life, habits, and character of the different tribes inhabiting it, and the relations of the Hudson's Bay Company to them. All of the statements of the author confirm the most authentic accounts of others....The last volume terminates with a vocabulary of Indian dialects." Graff 2640; Smith 6418; Streeter VI: 3712; Sabin 43514; TPL 2729.