Collot, Georges Henri Victor, General.

Voyage dans l’Amérique septentrionale, ou description des pays arrosés par le Mississipi, l’Ohio, le Missouri et autres rivières affluentes; observations exactes sur le cours et les sondes de ces rivières; sur les villes, villages, hameaux et fermes de cette partie du nouveau-monde; suivi de remarques philosophiques, politiques, militaires et commerciales; et d’un projet de lignes frontières et de limites générales. Avec un atlas de 36 cartes, plans, vues et figures. Par feu le Général Collot, Ex-Gouverneur de la Guadeloupe. Tome premier [- second]

Paris: Arthus Bertrand, 1826. First edition.

Text: octavo (7 7/8” x 4 15/16”).
Vol. I: π² 1–26⁸ [$2 signed]. 210 leaves, pp. [4] (half-title, advertisement, title, blank) i ii–vi vii–ix 10–416.
Vol. II: π² 2π⁸ 1–24⁸ 25⁸ (–₈25) 26–27⁸ [$2 signed; –₂27]. 224 leaves, pp. [4] (half-title, imprint, title, blank) i ii–viii 1 2–8 ₂1 2–427 [1] (blank).
Atlas: folio (14” x 1 ½”): π². 2 leaves, pp. [4] (title, imprint, plate list, blank). With 36 engravings: 11 plates and 25 maps, of which 10 are folding.

Text volumes bound in quarter vellum over red marbled boards. On the spine, author and title gilt to calf in the second panel, number gilt to green paper in the fourth. Atlas volume with deckled edges and newly bound in quarter leatherette over faux-tree calf paper boards.

Boards slightly bowed and worming to the hinges of the text volumes. Pastedowns refreshed. Sporadic pale foxing to the text. Repaired tear to the bottom edge of ₁1 in volume II. Paper flaws to the margin of a number of leaves in volume II, none affecting the text. In the atlas, offsetting to the folding maps, pale foxing and occasional soiling. Plate 2 loosely bound. Repaired tear to the fore-edge of plate 36. Library blind stamp of Michael D. Paul to the title-page of the atlas.

General Georges Henri Victor Collot (1750–1805) occupies a singular place among the chroniclers of early America. A veteran of the American Revolution, he first arrived in North America in 1780 as a lieutenant-colonel serving under the Comte de Rochambeau with the French expeditionary force that aided in securing American independence. His experience of the New World awarded him the gubernatorial seat in Guadeloupe, whence after great dissent and internecine strife he left, more or less as a prisoner, for the United States in 1796. Although an émigré officer in an official capacity, the French Directory dispatched Collot to gather intelligence on the trans-Appalachian West at a moment when European powers were competing for influence over the Mississippi Valley. Spain had controlled Louisiana since the conclusion of the Seven Years' War, but France had begun quietly considering the recovery of its former colony. Collot's instructions were to evaluate the military strength of Spanish Louisiana, examine the navigability of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, inspect frontier fortifications, assess commercial possibilities, and report on the loyalties and dispositions of both Native nations and American settlers.

Collot’s activities attracted suspicion from American authorities, and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering ordered that his movements be monitored. A young Zebulon Pike, years before his own celebrated western expeditions, was among those tasked with observing the French general's progress. Collot was briefly detained by Pike but upon release, was soon arrested by Spanish colonial authorities in New Orleans who were equally dubious of his motives and confiscated many of his papers.

After several months of detention Collot was permitted to leave for France in 1800, carrying with him the notes, sketches, and surveys that would become one of the great documentary records of the early American frontier. Collot devoted the final years of his life to transforming his field notes into a comprehensive geographical, historical, and military account of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys. The project synthesized Collot’s observations on geography, commerce, agriculture, Indigenous nations, military defenses, and the prospects of western settlement. The accompanying atlas was equally exhaustive, and required the engraving of dozens of detailed maps, plans, and views under the direction of Pierre François Tardieu. Printing began in 1804, but Collot died in the spring of 1805 before seeing the work completed. The upheavals of the Napoleonic period delayed publication indefinitely, leaving the printed sheets in storage for nearly twenty years.

Only in 1826 did the Paris publisher Arthus Bertrand finally issue the completed work, simultaneously producing a French edition of approximately 300 examples and an English edition limited to roughly a third of that size. Even these modest stock proved slow to sell, and many of the remaining volumes were ultimately pulped. The publication had appeared in a dramatically altered political landscape from the one Collot documented. Spain had retroceded Louisiana to France in 1800, Napoleon had sold the territory to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, and by 1826 the regions Collot had explored as distant frontier outposts had become organized American states and territories. His narrative consequently preserves an invaluable picture of the trans-Mississippi West on the precipice of rapid transformation under American expansion. For the collector of Midwest material, Collot is the cornerstone.

Dr. Michael D. Paul was a Canadian nephrologist, an impassioned supporter of special collections, and a dedicated patron of dealers in fine printing and rare Judaica. Through his support, the Jewish Public Library launched the Dr. Michael D. Paul Rare Books Initiative, which worked to bring its 1,500 rare texts to the public through visits to secondary schools, community centers, libraries, and synagogues. In memoriam for Dr. Paul, JPL’s director, Eddie Paul, aptly summarized the collector’s life and work, writing, “Kidneys filter and clear toxins from the blood; books help to clarify and filter the detritus the world throws at the imagination.”

Howes C 601 (“d” (“very rare books, obtainable only with great difficulty”)); Sabin 14460; Streeter sale III:1789; Wagner-Camp 31a:1, 31a:1a; Wheat, Transmississippi West 236.

Cataloged by G.R. Murdock

Item #GRM0100

Price: $250,000