Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida

1791. BARTRAM, William. Travels through North & South Carolina, Georgia, East & West Florida, the Cherokee Country, the Extensive Territories of the Muscolgulges, or Creek Confederacy, and the Country of the Choctaws. Phila.: James & Johnson, 1791. 1st ed. xxxiv,[2],522pp. plus 8 plates (1 folding) including frontis. and folding map. Contemporary calf, nicely recornered and rebacked with original label preserved. A very good copy in a calf-backed clamshell box. HOWES B-223, "b." Clark1:197. Evans 23159. Sabin 3870. Coates, The Plant Hunters, pp. 273-76. Reese, Federal Hundred 33. Vail 849. Streeter Sale 1088. Field 94. Pilling 301. The rare first edition of one of the classic accounts of southern natural history and exploration, with much on the southern Indian tribes. For the period, Bartram's work is unrivalled, :...Bartram wrote with all the enthusiasm and interest with which the fervent old Spanish friars and missionaries narrated the wonders of the new found world...he neglected nothing which would add to the common stock of human knowledge"-Field. "Unequalled for the vivid picturesqueness of its descriptions of nature, scenery, and productions"-Sabin. Includes a chapter entitled "Language and Manners [of the Muscogulges and Cherokees].