[Rarebooks] FS: Mackenzie's VOYAGES FROM MONTREAL, 1801, with Maps

[Charles Agvent]

MACKENZIE, Alexander. VOYAGES FROM MONTREAL ON THE RIVER ST. LAURENCE, 
THROUGH THE CONTINENT OF NORTH AMERICA, TO THE FROZEN AND PACIFIC 
OCEANS; IN THE YEARS 1789 AND 1793. With a Preliminary Account of the 
Rise, Progress, and Present State of the Fur Trade of that Country. 
London: Cadell & Davies, 1801. First Edition. Large quarto (8-1/4" x 
11") bound in attractive modern full tan calf in antique style, with 
heavily gilt-decorated spine with contrasting gilt-lettered morocco 
spine labels, gilt dentelles and marbled endpapers; [4] viii, cxxxii, 
412 pages + errata leaf. FIELD 967: "No writer upon the subject of 
Indian customs and peculiarities has given us a more minute, careful and 
interesting relation"; GRAFF 2630; HILL, pp. 187-88: "This is the first 
and finest edition of one of the most important of Canadian books"; 
HOWES M-133; LANDE 1317; NEW HOWES M-133 "dd": "First crossing of the 
continent from ocean to ocean by a white man.... The account of the fur 
trade--first ever published--is attributed to Roderick Mackenzie"; SABIN 
43414; WAGNER-CAMP 1; WHEAT 251: "Mackenzie was the first white man to 
cross the continent, and his journal of this expedition is of surpassing 
interest." One of the greatest books in the field of Travel and 
Exploration and a classic of Canadiana and Western Americana. 
Illustrated with a frontispiece engraved portrait of Mackenzie by P. 
Condé after Thomas Lawrence and three large folding engraved maps, the 
largest measuring 31" x 19". The "Map of Mackenzie's track from Ft. 
Chippewa to the Pacific Ocean in 1793" was a milestone and, as Wheat 
says, "At once questions began to be raised about the now patent 
inadequacies of all prior maps of the American Far West." Lacking the 
half title, as usual. Minor occasional foxing; some offsetting from 
portrait to title page and on maps which, except for one neat repair and 
two minor marginal closed tears are fine; slight bowing of boards. A 
very attractive, Near Fine example of this important text.

This book had an enormous impact on the future of the United States. 
Thomas Jefferson and his secretary, Meriwether Lewis, read it, and 
Mackenzie's recommendation that the British fur trade set up shop at the 
mouth of the Columbia River spurred Jefferson to reaffirm U.S. 
territorial rights to the Pacific Northwest and led to the most 
important expedition in the history of North American exploration, the 
Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06. (#020272)        $7,500

https://www.charlesagvent.com/pages/books/020272/alexander-mackenzie/voyages-from-montreal-on-the-river-st-laurence-through-the-continent-of-north-america-to-the-frozen

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