[Rarebooks] fa: GEORGE CATLIN - LETTERS AND NOTES on the NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS 1841 - 1st/1st

[Ardwight Chamberlain]

Listed now, auction ending Sunday, June 6. More details and images can be found at the URL below or by searching under the seller name arch_in_la.

http://tinyurl.com/ph23o5k

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. London: Published by the Author, at Egyptian Hall, Piccadilly. Printed by Tosswill and Myers, 1841. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE.. Two volumes, tall 8vo (258 mm; 10 1/8 in), in original publisher's green pebbled cloth, printed paper spine labels, yellow endpapers; viii, 264 pp.; viii, 266 pp.; errata slip; 3 maps (one folding), engraved plates. Howes C241; Streeter 1805.

An unusually well-preserved copy of the true first edition of Catlin's monumental and sympathetic study of American Indians, profusely illustrated with the author's line drawings. With the uncorrected error "Frederick" for "Zedekiah" on page 104, line 26 of vol. I, and with the elusive errata slip present and tipped onto the verso of the frontispiece. The plates have been counted and are complete: three maps (one folding) plus 177 leaves of plates (erratically numbered, as Catlin himself admits in the errata, many leaves with multiple engravings).

Bindings bumped and worn at the corners; a few minor spots of soiling and scuffing; sunning and rubbing to the spine labels. Contents with some tanning/light browning, most evident on the text leaves, a few small dings and bumps to the edges of the text blocks, occasional light fingering; scattered foxing to the plates, mostly light or marginal, occasionally rather heavier (as seen in the photo of the frontispiece above); one plate leaf with soiling and short tears to the edges; otherwise generally quite clean and very sound, firmly bound. The folding map, while lightly tanned, is in superior condition: clean and crisp with no tears or repairs. A very solid example of a famous book, one of the most important nineteenth-century works on the American Indian.