Adventures in the Wilds of the United States First Edition - Charles Lanman - Bauman Rare Books

Adventures in the Wilds of the United States

Charles LANMAN

Item#: 67933 We're sorry, this item has been sold

Adventures in the Wilds of the United States

EARLY WORK ON AMERICAN HUNTING, FISHING AND RECREATIONAL SPORTS, 1856

LANMAN, Charles. Adventures in the Wilds of the United States and British American Provinces. Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1856. Two volumes. Octavo, original red cloth, gilt-stamped with moose centerpiece and fish motif on spine.

Greatly enlarged first American edition of this “cyclopedia of American scenery and personal adventure, and of traveling incidents, calculated to exhibit the manners and customs of our people,” with 12 full-page wood-engraved views. A fine copy.

In the late 1830s Lanman “began exploring places in the eastern part of the United States, then more difficult of access, which have since become well-known vacation resorts. He was one of the first to use the canoe as a pleasure craft. Sketches which he published in papers and magazines, both in England and in the United States, attracted the attention of Washington Irving, who was called him ‘the picturesque explorer of our country.’ [During the 1840s] he continued his fishing trips and explorations on foot, on horseback, and in canoes, which carried him through the Mississippi Valley, the region of the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence, and over the whole of the Appalachian system from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf states” (DAB). Irving wrote of Lanman’s works that “they give us pictures of savage life and savage tribes, Indian legends, fishing and hunting anecdotes, the adventures of trappers and backwoodsmen; our whole arcanum, in short, of indigenous poetry and romance.” First published in London in 1854, this first American edition is greatly enlarged. Howes L87. Owner signature dated in the year of publication. Bookplate.

Text lightly embrowned (as usual), original cloth fresh, gilt remarkably bright. A fine copy.

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Aquatint Copperplate process by which the plate is “bitten” by exposure to acid. By changing the areas of the plate that are exposed and the length of time the plate is submerged in the acid bath, the engraver can obtain fine and varying shades of gray that closely resemble watercolor washes. Although the name contains the word “tint”, this is a black-and-white printing process; aquatint plates can often be hand colored, however.
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