A New Discovery of the Vast Country in America… -- A Continuation... Giving an Account of the Attempts of the Sieur De la Salle upon the Mines of St Barbe
Author: Louis Hennepin (1626-1704)
Year: 1698
Publisher: M. Bentley, J. Tonson, H. Bonwick, T. Goodwin and S. Manship
Place: London
Description:
2 volumes in one. [xx]+engraved title-page+folding map+355 pages with frontispiece, folding maps and folding plates. [xxvi]+folding map+178 pages with folding plates. Small octavo (7 3/4" x 5") bound in attractive later red morocco with five raised spine bands and gilt lettering to spine, edges in gilt. (Graff 1862; Howes H-416; Lande 423; Pforzheimer 461; Sabin 31371; Streeter J106; Thwaite, 1903 edition, p.xlii; Wing H1450) First English edition.
The "Bon" issue (with the first line of the printers on the title-page ending in "Bon-"). This work includes A Continuation of the New Discovery bound at the end with separate title-page and pagination, but with continuous signatures.
One of the most important 17th-century accounts of the upper Midwest and Great Lakes regions. Louis Hennepin, Rene Robert Cavelier and Sieur de la Salle established Fort Crevecouer in Peoria, Illinois, and explored the upper Mississippi River before being captured by the Sioux. Hennepin reached St. Anthony's Falls (near present-day Minneapolis, Minnesota) on a hunting expedition with the Sioux, which was the farthest a European man had traveled into the Northwest Territory at the time. Hennepin wrote his account of the journey in 1682 after being rescued by French voyager Daniel De Lhut and provides the first eye-witness account and first published views of Niagara falls. Despite Hennepin's plagiarism of Le Clercq's Etablissement de la foy, Hennepin's works still provide "invaluable contributions to the sources of American history; they deserve study" (Thwaite).
Condition: Some minor spotting; maps with some minor soiling and tears (some with repairs) and one backed in linen, slight rubbing to joints and extremities, a few minor scuffs to sides. Provenance: Dudley Bell Priester (1923-2017), Mississippi River collector and bibliographer with his bookplate, (sold Bloomsbury, 20 November 2009, lot 84). A very good copy.
