History of the American Indians; Particularly those Nations adjoining to the Mississippi, East and West Florida, Georgia, South and North Carolina, and Virginia
London: Printed for Edward and Charles Dilly, 1775. First edition.
Quarto (10 1/8” x 8”, 258mm x 203mm): [xii] (half-title, blank, title, blank, 4pp. dedication, 2pp. preface, 2pp. contents), 464. With a folding engraved map.
Bound in later mottled calf with a triple gilt fillet border by Bedford (signed at the upper fore-corner of the verso of the first free end-paper). On the spine, five raised bands with a gilt roll. In the panels, gilt florals. Title gilt to red morocco in the second panel, author gilt to red morocco in the third panel. Double gilt fillet to the edges of the boards. Gilt inside dentelle. Red, orange and blue marbled end-papers. All edges of the text-block gilt.
Rebacked, with the original back-strip laid down. Some wear to the fore-corners. Else a near-fine copy with quite luxurious margins (roughly 35mm) and hardly any toning or foxing, except for the usual offsetting of the map.
Adair’s History stands as the first definitive history of the indigenous people of the Southeast. The folding map “Map of the American Indian Nations…” is notable for its lack of European powers’ borders. Adair (d. 1783) was an Irishman who came to trade with the people of whom he wrote —especially the Chickasaw, but also the Cherokee and Catawba — providing for curious Europe (a German translation was made soon after) a true first-hand account of the Native Americans. James believed that the indigenous people of America were in fact the lost tribe of Israel, and the first half of the book lays out his thesis with gusto (much ink was spilled in refutation in the years to come). The second half reflects his wide-ranging experience traveling through the country, with accounts of the practices of the people he met as well as the climate, flora and fauna of the largely unsettled American Southeast.
Clark, Old South 28; Howes A-38; Sabin 155.
Item #6JLR0014
Price: $6,800