“ONE OF THE BEST AMERICAN TRAVEL BOOKS EVER WRITTEN”: RARE FIRST EDITION OF BARTLETT’S NARRATIVE, 1854, THE HILL COPY

BARTLETT, John Russell. Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission. New York: D. Appleton & Company, 1854. Two volumes. Octavo, original green cloth, gilt spines. Housed in a cloth slipcase. $5500.

First edition of this landmark work of southwestern travel and exploration, with folding map and sixteen tinted lithographs on heavy stock (two folding), as well as numerous other full-page plates and in-text illustrations, from the collection of Kenneth E. Hill with his bookplate.

“An essential book for the southwest” (Graff 198). “Bartlett’s Narrative is the most scholarly and scientific description of Southwest Texas of its era. Streeter called it the first thoroughly scholarly description of the Southwest. President Zachary Taylor appointed Bartlett commissioner to run the boundary line between the United States and Mexico. Bartlett, a bibliographer and antiquary, was an odd choice for this mammoth task… yet he served for three years, travelled thousands of miles, and produced one of the best American travel books ever written… Bartlett’s expedition was valuable for contributions regarding mines, minerals, and geology in general, and vastly advanced knowledge of the natural history, ethnology, meteorology, and topography of the areas traversed… Bartlett includes four chapters giving a general summary of the activities of the commission, the results of his natural history investigations, on the best railway route, and on the use of camels for transportation” (Basic Texas Books 12). Bartlett later became the first librarian of the John Carter Brown Library. Plates depict views throughout the Southwest, cities and forts, geysers, etc. As described in Howes, one geyser plate, although listed in Vol. II, was not issued, although an additional view of Tucson not listed in the table of contents is included. The large folding map, housed in a pocket at the rear of Vol. I, shows the region in detail. Hill 74. Howes B201 (aa). Sabin 3746. Wagner & Camp 234.1. Streeter 173. Clark III: 272. Bookplates, including that of eminent collector Kenneth E. Hill.

Contents generally clean, occasional minor offsetting or light foxing, including to a few plates; short closed tear from inner edge of first folding map, a few signatures unopened. Cloth showing only minor wear. A desirable association copy, in extremely good condition.