[Rarebooks] fa: Winterbotham's VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES 1795 - 4 vols. w/ ALL PLATES & MAPS incl. PLAN OF WASHINGTON

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with other 17th-19th Century British books and  
pamphlets, auctions ending Sunday, May 9. Details and images can be  
found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://shop.ebay.com/arch_in_la/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340
OR
http://tinyurl.com/yhk74ma

Thanks again,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A., CA USA


W[illiam] Winterbotham: An Historical, Geographical, Commercial, and  
Philosophical View of the American United States, and of the European  
Settlements in America and the West-Indies. London: Printed for the  
Editor; J. Ridgway, York-Street; H. D. Symonds, Paternoster-Row; and  
D. Holt, Newark, 1795. FIRST EDITION. Four volumes, 8vo, bound in  
period calf with gilt-lettered spine labels; viii, [2], 591; [4], 493;  
[4], 525; [4], 415, [1], 95, [1], [9] pp.; engraved maps and plates,  
tables. Goldsmiths’ 16227; Sabin 104831; Howes W581 (for 1796 first  
American edition); ESTC T131074.

Illustrated with 23 copper-engraved plates, including 4 portrait  
frontispieces (of Washington, Franklin, Penn and Winterbotham) and one  
hand-colored plate; 11 maps and plans, 9 of them folding, including  
two hand-colored folding maps; and 7 tables on 4 folding sheets.  
Lacking the directions to the binder, but an examination of the  
binder's directions from the 1799 London edition (found online) shows  
that, while one folding table appears to be missing, ALL PLATES & MAPS  
ARE PRESENT and accounted for. These include a very good example of  
the scarce, large folding PLAN OF THE CITY OF WASHINGTON IN THE  
TERRITORY OF COLUMBIA (ca. 21" x 16.5"), showing the city's layout,  
with numbered blocks, the Capitol and the “Presidents House”,  
Georgetown, the Potomack (sic) River and the "Eastern  
Branch" (Anacostia River), Reedy Branch and Tiber Creek, etc. This  
"elusive plan [is] usually not found with the set," as one prominent  
bookdealer whose set is without it wistfully remarks, and indeed we  
find no other sets with the plan of Washington currently on offer in  
the principal online bookseller databases. Similarly, we find no sets  
with any colored maps, while our set boasts TWO HAND-COLORED FOLDING  
MAPS (the NEW ENGLAND STATES and the MIDDLE STATES). Also present is  
the important hand-colored plate of the TOBACCO PLANT, which, when it  
appeared a year later in the New York edition, was the first colored  
plate regularly published in an American book.

The other folding maps and full-page plans are: Map of NORTH-AMERICA;  
Map of the UNITED STATES (extending to the Mississippi and showing  
part of Florida, with the “Twenty League Line” off the east coast);  
Map of the SOUTHERN STATES (showing Indian tribes, lands belonging to  
the Wabash Company, New Jersey Company, Illinois Company and Tennessee  
Government, the Ouaquaphenogaw [Okefenokee] Swamp, etc.); Map of  
KENTUCKY (considered the best map produced in the early years of  
Kentucky's statehood; also showing much of Tennessee and part of  
Georgia); a Plan of LYSTRA and a Plan of FRANKLINVILLE [Kentucky]  
(proposed utopian communities that were never built); Map of SOUTH  
AMERICA; and Map of the WEST INDIES. The plates include depictions of  
the exotic flora and fauna of the New World (bison, llama, monkeys,  
alligator, rattle-snake, etc.) and landscape views (St. Anthony Falls,  
etc.).

As impressive as the scope and variety of this history of America and  
the West Indies, is the fact that it was composed entirely within the  
confines of Newgate Prison. William Winterbotham (1763-1829) was a  
Baptist preacher whose "radical" sermons resulted in his arrest for  
sedition in 1793. Sentenced to four years imprisonment, Winterbotham  
used his time productively, composing the present work as well as a  
similar history of China. His progressive views are reflected in his  
sympathetic treatment of the American Revolution and the founding of  
the republic.

A key early history of the United States, essentially and uncommonly  
complete with all plates, maps and plans, several of which are highly  
desirable in themselves and often sell in the four figures. The second  
volume has a mismatched binding, but is from the same edition.  
Bindings a bit rough, but contents generally very good or better:  
spines worn with some cracking and chipping, hinges starting but  
secure, wear and rubbing to the edges and boards; maps with some  
creases from mis-folding, several maps with occasional toning and  
short tears to the edges or folds, one map with an unobtrusive tape  
repair to the verso, two maps protruding a bit from the text block due  
to mis-folding, some generally mild offsetting to and from the plates  
and maps, a few occasional small spots to the leaves, previous owners'  
signatures to front endpapers; otherwise quite clean and sound.  
Clearly, not all of Winterbotham's reader's shared his sympathies with  
the new republic: at the end of the chapter entitled "The Advantages  
which the United States Possess Over European Countries", an early/ 
contemporary owner of this set has left a penciled note which reads:  
"But after all, there is nothing like Old England."