Adventures on the Columbia River: Including the narrative of a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains, among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown: Together with a journey across the American continent
Author: Ross Cox (1793–1853)
Year: 1831
Publisher: Henry Colburn & Richard Bentley
Place: London
Description:
2 volumes with half-titles. xxiv+368 pages; viii+400 pages with 1 wood-engraved illustration a sketch map of the junction of the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers on page 83 and appendix. Royal octavo (9" x 5 3/4") bound in half leather with six raised spine bands with red labels with gilt lettering over marbled boards. (Cowan, p.59; Field 376; Forbes II, 775; Hill (2004) 390; Howes c822, aa.; Judd 47; Peel 83; Pilling, Proof-sheets 915; Sabin 17267; Streeter sale 3702; Tweney 89, 10; Wagner-Camp 43:1.) First British edition preceding the American edition.
Ross Cox was a fur trader for the Pacific Fur Company. In 1811 he sailed form New York, around the Horn, to Hawaii, and on to the Columbia River, exploring inland to Montana along the Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers. For six years he lived on the frontier--and beyond--in a violent world of white and red men, bears and wolves, frostbite, and starvation. He wasn't a hero, but he was a survivor, and a sharp observer who wrote one of the best firsthand accounts of the fur trapper's life.
Condition:
Modern light brown speckled half sheep over marbled paper-covered boards. Crudely repaired 6 1/2 inch tear in volume I, pages 287/288; upper outer blank corner of final leaf in volume I torn away; 1 1/2 inch tear to volume II; pages 133/134 in volume II in photocopied facsimile; occasional small marginal tears, old light creasing and internal spotting in both volumes else about very good.
