[Filson, John]:

$3,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

HISTOIRE DE KENTUCKE, NOUVELLE COLONIE A L'OUEST DE LA VIRGINIE.... The first French edition of Filson's pioneering history of the settlements in Kentucky, issued the year after the extremely rare Wilmington, Delaware edition. "The most famous and important frontier book of the period...particularly important for the first map of Kentucky and the first published life of Daniel Boone" (Vail), including an account of Boone's captivity. W.R. Jillson, in the introduction to his reprint of Filson, says Filson "has left to posterity a priceless tale of early days in Kentucky, which, for stirring action and regional description, has rarely been equalled as a piece of frontier writing in any part of the country, and never surpassed." The map was the first to provide an accurate delineation of Kentucky, and this is the first obtainable edition, as the American first is known in only a few copies.

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