MACKENZIE, Alexander.
Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence.
New York: Printed and Sold by G.F. Hopkins, 1802.
$1,500.00
In Stock
Item Number: RRB-153010
+$500
First American Edition of Sir Alexander Mackenzie's Voyages from Montreal; The First Transcontinental Crossing of North America
First American edition of the explorer’s celebrated account of his two great expeditions across North America, the first crossing of the continent north of Mexico, achieved twelve years before Lewis and Clark. Small quarto, bound in full contemporary sheep, the spine with gilt-lettered morocco label, with the frontispiece folding engraved map of America tracing Mackenzie’s track across the continent to the Pacific. In very good condition, repairs to the map. A landmark work of North American exploration.
Sir Alexander Mackenzie (1764-1820) was a Scottish-born fur trader and explorer whose expeditions for the North West Company opened the interior of the North American continent. In 1789 he descended the great river that now bears his name from Great Slave Lake some 1,100 miles to its delta on the Arctic Ocean, and in 1793 he crossed the Rocky Mountains to reach the Pacific coast of present-day British Columbia, becoming the first European to complete a transcontinental crossing of North America north of Mexico, more than a decade before the expedition of Lewis and Clark. First published in London in 1801, his Voyages from Montreal made him famous and earned him a knighthood, and was studied closely by Thomas Jefferson and by Lewis and Clark as they prepared their own journey. This first American edition appeared in New York the following year.
Voyages from Montreal on the River St. Laurence.
$1,500.00
In Stock
