Holley, Mary Austin:

$20,000 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

TEXAS. OBSERVATIONS, HISTORICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE, IN A SERIES OF LETTERS, WRITTEN DURING A VISIT TO AUSTIN'S COLONY, WITH A VIEW TO A PERMANENT SETTLEMENT IN THAT COUNTRY, IN THE AUTUMN ... The rare first edition of the first book in English devoted entirely to Texas. The fine "Map of the State of Coahuila and Texas" is by W. Hooker and displays the region from just east of New Orleans to a degree west of Santa Fe, and north from the mouth of the Rio Grande to just above the 38th parallel. Mrs. Holley was the cousin of Stephen F. Austin, to whom the book is dedicated, and Jenkins states that it was written with his assistance. Mrs. Holley travelled from the mouth of the Brazos River to Bolivar to aid her brother, Henry, in making his home there. She found Texas "very like a dream or youthful vision realized." Her work on this book was followed closely and approved by her brother and cousins. The book is, in the words of Thomas W. Streeter, "one of the Texas classics." Copies with the map—and in unsophisticated condition, as here—are rare indeed.

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