"AMONG THE BEST HISTORICAL WRITERS OF HIS COUNTRY": SPLENDID ILLUSTRATED SET OF PARKMAN'S HISTORIES, WITH A LEAF INSCRIBED AND SIGNED BY PARKMAN TIPPED-IN

PARKMAN, Francis. The Works. Boston: Little, Brown, 1897-1901. Twenty-one volumes. Octavo, contemporary full brown morocco, elaborately gilt-decorated spines, green morocco doublures, watered silk endpapers, top edges gilt, uncut. $8800.

"Champlain Edition" of Parkman's Works, number 1057 of 1200 sets produced, illustrated with over 150 photogravures, engravings and maps, beautifully bound in full morocco gilt. With a presentation inscription signed by Parkman tipped into Volume I.

"Parkman ranks among the best historical writers of his country… his place is alongside the greatest historians whose works are English classics" (Allibone II:1212). Parkman was one of the first American historians to consult original French and British manuscript material relating to the settlement of the West, and his writings possess a literary sophistication rarely found in the field of history. Includes The Oregon Trail, Pioneers of France in the New World, The Old Régime in Canada and History of the Conspiracy of Pontiac. "Parkman is revered to this day for his Oregon Trail and for his splendid historical volumes. Most of the volumes of his history [of North America] proved immensely popular. Pioneers of France and The Old Régime, for example, went into more than 20 editions each. LaSalle, Moncalm and Wolfe, and Pontiac are especially admirable for their scholarly accuracy and painterly descriptions and for a narrative momentum reminiscent of Sir Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper. Throughout the series, Parkman steadily dramatizes the physical hardihood evinced by his particular heroes when challenged by the big woods and big waters and when subduing military opposition. He praises the first settlers' moral strength… and he portrays forward-looking British political liberty as defeating reactionary French theocratic absolutism" (ANB). Includes Charles Haight Farnham's Life of Francis Parkman.

A splendidly bound and illustrated set in fine condition.