[Blane, William Newnham]:

$1,500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

AN EXCURSION THROUGH THE UNITED STATES AND CANADA DURING THE YEARS 1822-23. By an English Gentleman. The author, an Englishman named William N. Blane, travelled extensively throughout the east and northeast in Canada and the United States, recounting his visits in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri. In his U.S. travels, Blane focuses on the Midwest, though Clark states that perhaps one-fourth of the description relates to the South. Blane arrived in New York from London and found it gripped by an epidemic of Yellow Fever, at which point he proceeded west until he encountered Morris Birkbeck's English settlement in Illinois, and also visited St. Louis. The narrative contains material regarding slavery, indigenous tribes, the backwoods frontier, housing, emigration, government, laws, the Harmony Society, Shakers, and more. The frontispiece is a large, handcolored folding map of the United States as far west as modern New Mexico, originally published by John Melish in 1820, and an in-text folding map depicts the Straits of Niagara. The last several chapters deviate from the travel narrative and describe individual aspects of American life and society, including the army, buffalo, education, and religion."[Blane] criticized his own countrymen for their prejudiced and unfair accounts of American life, but noted evidence of a changing attitude. He concluded that the frontier was not a place where immigrant Englishmen would be happier, but recommended any part of Americ

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.