Lot 122: BARTRAM, WILLIAM. 1739-1823. Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Philadelphia: James

Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscogulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Chactaws. Philadelphia: James & Johnson, 1791.
[4], xxxiv, [2 blank], 522 pp. With engraved frontispiece portrait of "Mico Chlucco, King of the Siminoles," folding map, and 7 plates (1 of which is folding). 8vo (200 x 115 mm). Period sheep, red morocco lettering-piece. Custom slipcase and chemise. Some browning and offsetting, title-page and a plate re-hinged, bound a bit tight, rebacked with original spine laid down.

FIRST EDITION, A CLASSIC OF SOUTHERN FRONTIER LITERATURE. "Unequalled for the vivid picturesqueness of its descriptions of nature, scenery, and productions" (Sabin). Written by the naturalist William Bartram, this work details plant and animal life as well as frontier and Indian cultures. Its lyrical style proved influential to writers such as Samuel Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. "Bartram wrote with all the enthusiasm and interest with which the fervent old Spanish friars and missionaries narrated the wonders of the new found world ... he neglected nothing which would add to the common stock of human knowledge" (Field). Clark I:197; De Renne, p 250; Evans 23159; Field 94; Howes B223; Pilling Iroquoian p 10; Pilling Muskhogean pp 6-7; Sabin 3870; Servies 669; Streeter sale 1088; Vail 849.
Acquisition: purchased from William Reese Company, 1992, $5,400.