The California and Oregon Trail: Being Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life.

PARKMAN, Francis.

$6,500.00

Item Number: 117084

New York: George R. Putnam, 1849.

First edition, first issue of Parkman’s classic account of his journey across North America on the Oregon Trail in the scarce original cloth, one of 1,000 copies issued in March 1849 (Howes, 97). Octavo, original cloth stamped in blind, gilt titles in sans-serif font to the spine, tissue guarded tinted lithographic frontispiece and vignette half title by Felix Octavius Carr Darley, with the ad leaf preceding the frontispiece present. In very good condition. Housed in a custom half morocco and chemise case. From the libraries of famed bibliophile Joseph Halle Schaffner with his bookplate to the pastedown and newspaper publisher James Strohn Copley with his bookplate to the interior of the chemise case. Rare. A completely unrestored example with noted provenance.

The California and Oregon Trail is the gripping account of young Bostonian's Francis Parkman's journey west across North America in 1846. After crossing the Allegheny Mountains by coach and continuing by boat and wagon to Westport, Missouri, he set out with three companions on a horseback journey that would ultimately take him over two thousand miles. His detailed description of the journey, set against the vast majesty of the Great Plains, has emerged through the generations as a classic narrative of one man's exploration of the American Wilderness. "Mr. Parkman had all the genuine love of adventure of a frontiersman, the taste for the picturesque and romantic of an artist, and the skill in narration of an accomplished raconteur. It is not too high praise to say that his pictures of save life are not excelled" (Field, 1177).