Beschreibung:

Title: The California and Oregon Trail: Being Sketches of Prairie and Rocky Mountain Life Author: Parkman, Francis, Jr. Place: New York Publisher: George P. Putnam Date: 1849 Description: [3]-448 + 2 ad pp. Tinted lithograph frontispiece and additional illustrated title page. (8vo) later black half morocco and marbled boards. First Edition, third printing. One of the most widely read and influential narratives of the American frontier, going through six printings, or editions, within ten years of publication. "Francis Parkman, one of the giants of Nineteenth Century American historical writing..., began his literary career west of the Mississippi. A tour of the Great Plains in 1846 seems hardly a means to regaining health and vigor, but with this goal in mind young Parkman, in fragile health and in danger of losing his eyesight, set out. His daily notes became the material for his first book. He left Saint Louis with his cousin Quincy A. Shaw on April 28, 1846, traveling first to Fort Laramie, then south along the eastern edge of the Rockies to the adobe fort and trading post at E. Pueblo, on the Arkansas River. He returned to the States by way of Bent's Fort and the Santa Fe Trail" - Wagner-Camp. Field remarks, "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 savage life are not excelled..." This is the third printing, without printer's imprint on title-page verso, etc. BAL 15446; Cowan p. 474; Field 1177; Graff 3201; Howes P97; Streeter Sale 1815, 1816; Wagner-Camp 170:1c. Lot Amendments Condition: Extremities lightly worn, rear hinge cracking; foxing; very good. Item number: 220840