[Rarebooks] fa: GEORGE CATLIN - NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS - 1st US Ed. 1841 (80+ plates, folding map)

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, along with some other Americana, auctions ending Sunday,  
Feb. 25. Details and images to 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

Thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
L.A.
George Catlin: Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs and Condition  
of the North American Indians. Written During Eight Years' Travel  
Amongst the Wildest Tribes of Indians in North America. In 1832, 33,  
34, 35, 36, 37, 38, and 39. NY: Wiley and Putnam, 1841. Two volumes,  
tall 8vos, in original publisher's cloth with designs in blind and  
gilt; viii + 264 pp.; viii + 266 pp.; 175+ leaves of plates, folding  
map, tipped-in errata slip. Howes C241. Sabin 11536

The FIRST AMERICAN EDITION of Catlin's famous work (issued the same  
year as the London first), one of the most important 19th-century  
works on American Indians, as well as one of the earliest to depict  
them sympathetically and for the most part accurately. Complete with  
300+ illustrations on more than 180 leaves of plates, three engraved  
maps, including a nice example of the often missing folding map, and  
the errata slip. (We count 182 plates — 76 in vol. I and 106 in vol. 2  
— with at least one duplicate.)

The binding of volume I is in need of restoration: the spine is gone,  
the front board is detached at the frontispiece, and the page  
gatherings are loosening or separating; one text leaf is detached and  
worn at the fore-edge. Volume II's spine cloth is split at the rear  
hinge, but the hinge and board are secure and the binding sound; light  
soiling and spotting, some bumps and wear to the extremities. The  
contents are generally Very Good or better: toning to the text leaves,  
a few occasional small stains, faintly visible impression of an erased  
pencilled doodle on the frontispiece of vol. I; otherwise clean and  
free of foxing. An externally imperfect but internally sound and  
unusually complete example of this landmark depiction of Native  
Americans.