A Classic of American Exploration
Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the Year 1842, and to Oregon and North California in the Years 1843–44.
Washington, D.C: Printed by Order of the Senate, by Gales and Seaton, 1845.
Price: $1,750.00
About the item
First Edition. 693pp. 22 engraved plates and 5 maps (including large folding map). 8vo. Publisher's cloth, rebacked retaining the original spine. Foxing and staining, separations at folds of the large map, pages 261–268 misprinted with loss to final line on each page. Presentation inscription on the title from Mr. Niles (Senator John Milton Niles?). Housed in a cloth clamshell box. Howes F 370; Wagner-Camp 115; Wheat Transmississippi 497; Cowan pp. 223–24; Sabin 25845; Graff 1437; Hasse, p. 31; Hill p. 112; Zamorano Eighty, #39; Grolier Club, One Hundred American Books, #49; Reese, Best of the West 86. Provenance: Samuel Tuck (early signature on ffep); William H. Claflin, Jr. (bookplate).
Item #369469
The Senate issue of the Fremont report, certainly one of the most important single pieces of Western Americana. In various editions this report was more widely read than any other account of the West before the Gold Rush, and the text and map had a profound effect on the routes frequented during the great period of emigration.
"The great folding map is an altogether memorable document in the cartographic history of the West" (Wheat). Christopher "Kit" Carson was one of the guides for Fremont along with many other famous scouts of the day, and Fremont’s book was instrumental in paving the way for expansion West.
A classic of American exploration.
