xii, 439 pp. 22.5x13.5 cm. (8¾x5¼"). original blindstamped cloth, spine lettered in gilt. First Edition.

Presentation copy from one of the author-publisher's family, inscribed at the top of the title-page: "From Miss Baily, Tavistock Sq." This has been neatly and only partially crossed out. There is an additional inscription below, "Mrs. H.B. Stowe with the Editor's sincere respects," undoubtedly Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose Uncle Tom's Cabin appeared four years prior to the present book, which was edited by A. de Morgan. One of the earliest and most significant narratives of travel by an Englishman in the Mississippi and Ohio valleys, not published till nearly 60 years after the event. As a young man, Baily, who was to become President of the Royal Astronomical Society, traveled from Baltimore to Natchez by riverboat, and returned by land up the Natchez Trace. The narrative is of great importance for its observations on topography, vegetation and the life of the river, including descriptions of all the places he visited, which included Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Washington D.C., Charleston, Pittsburgh, Wheeling, Limestone, Columbia, Cincinnati, Port William, Louisville, Fort Massac, Natchez, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Nashville and Knoxville. On the way he met Daniel Boone and Zebulon Pike. Buck 52; Clark III, 74; Howes B40; Sabin 2770; Rader 230. Formerly the property of Gates College, with faint rubberstamps to front endpapers, faint trace from removed bookplate, spine stained from removal of label.