Observations sur La Virginie, traduites de l'Anglois
Paris: Chez Barrois, l’aîné; 1786. First publicly-printed French edition, first appearance of the map.
Octavo (7 5/8” x 4 15/16”, 193mm x 129mm): π2 a4 A-Aa8 Bb4 [$4 signed; –O4, Y3]. 202 leaves, pp. [4] (half-title, blank, title, blank), i ij-viij, 1 2-387 288-290, [2] (errata, blank). With a folding letterpress table and a large folding engraved map. [=xii, 392]
Bound in quarter brown calf (rebacked, with the original backstrip laid down) over contemporary coral paper-covered boards. On the spine, five pairs of horizontal gilt fillets. Title gilt to beige morocco in the second panel.
Rebacked, with the original backstrip laid down. Boards bowing (as usual because of the map). Some rubbing to the extremities and wear to the fore-corners. Lacking the second list of errata (3pp.), as often (not called for in Sabin). A tight, solid copy with very good margins (27–32mm). Some scattered pale dampstaining. With the printer’s device of the title-page replaced in facsimile, and a piece of A4 similarly replaced in facsimile. Scattered, neat and informed ink marginalia and corrections in a contemporary hand.
Written as a response to the enquiries of France’s ambassador to America, François Barbé Marbois, Jefferson’s Observations (English: Notes) was not initially intended for publication. He wrote it with the advantage of distance, during his service as U.S. minister to France. It proved, however, to be so comprehensive in its accounting and analysis of Virginia, and so distinctly American — what we might now call “Jeffersonian” — in its tone that Jefferson decided to have it printed for public circulation rather than merely for his private circle. With this edition, though, the Observations, translated from English by André Morellet, reached a wider public. The French translation is notoriously imperfect, and the annotator here gently but persistently corrects errors and infelicities in the language, in addition to making more substantive changes and comments.
Jefferson’s boundless curiosity is here on most dazzling display: topography, climate, boundaries, population, colleges, government, commerce, agriculture etc. all have their sections. Jefferson’s “Map of the Country between Albemarle Sound and Lake Erie…” (engraved by Neele) is the only map that the statesman ever drafted, and one of supreme importance. It appears here — though clearly with an eye to publication in English — for the first time. This map has considerable historical value, serving as primary documentary evidence of the westward movement in Virginia which is recorded cartographically on very few maps.
The period between 1750 and 1800 was one of extensive and accelerated migration, which Jefferson’s map captures at the mid-point between the map that his father, Peter Jefferson, made with Joshua Fry in 1750, and James Madison’s map of 1807. Jefferson’s familiarity with the heavily populated area of the state resulted in the location of towns and county seats with greater precision than had been achieved previously. Many natural monuments were marked for the first time on a map, including Zane’s and Madison’s Caves, the Indian Grave, and the Natural Bridge. This pivotal map, furthermore, served as a forum in which Jefferson could not only record with precision the geography of the state, but also make a political statement regarding the proper western boundary of Virginia and the future division of the western lands into five new states. Three of these he labeled simply as “A New State,” but two others were named specifically: “Kentuckey” because it was already one of the western counties of Virginia and known by that name, and “Frankland for the area that is now Tennessee”. In this way Jefferson’s map reflects not just the conventional cartographer’s task of mapping the land and its boundaries as they stand, but the excitement of delineating the land as it was envisioned to become.
Howes J78, Phillips p. 984, Sabin 35894 (without second list of errata), Virginia in Maps II-23.
Item #6JLR0025
Price: $48,000