Travels Through the Interior Parts of North-America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768

[6]+22+[16]+i-xvi+17-543+[21] pages with frontispiece, 2 folding colored maps, 5 plates (4 of these hand-colored) and index. Octavo (8 3/4" x 5 1/4") bound in full leather with five raised spine bands and black label lettered in gilt. (Howes, C215; Field, 251; Sabin, 11184; Vail, 670) Third edition second issue, according to Howes, with the index.

Jonathan Carver, early explorer of North America and author of one of the most widely read travel and adventure books in that period. Carver was promoted to lieutenant (1759) and then to captain (1760) while serving in a Massachusetts regiment during the French and Indian War. In 1766 he was sent by Major Robert Rogers on a journey of exploration westward from Rogers base at Fort Michilimackinac (now Mackinac, Mich.). Carver traveled west through the Great Lakes region to the Mississippi River and then up that river to the country of the Sioux Indians. Alone, he spent the winter of 1766 67 at a Sioux village on the Minnesota River. Returning to Fort Michilimackinac in the spring, he met Captain James Tute in command of a party that had been sent out by Rogers to explore a route to the Pacific Ocean. Tute brought orders for Carver to join the party as draftsman and third in command. They proceeded up the Mississippi and skirted the shores of Lake Superior to the Grand Portage. Failing to receive supplies, the party abandoned the expedition and returned to Fort Michilimackinac (August 1768).

Condition: Book plate to front paste down. Some internal soiling, corners bumped, light edge wear, spine gilt dulled else very good.