History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and

1814. LEWIS, Meriwether, and William CLARK. History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, to the sources of the Missouri, Thence Across the Rocky Mountains and Down the River Columbia to the Pacific Ocean. Performed During the Years 1804-5-6.... Philadelphia: Published by Bradford and Inskeep, 1814. Two volumes. xxviii,470pp. plus two maps; ix,[1],522pp. plus three maps. Large folding map supplied in expert facsimile. Later 19th-century three quarter sheep and pebbled cloth boards, spines gilt, expertly rebacked, original spines preserved. Presentation inscription on front free endpaper of both volumes and titlepage of first volume. Ownership signature and stamp on front free endpaper of first volume and titlepage of both volumes. Light foxing and tanning, a very good copy. The large folding map supplied in expert facsimile. In a half morocco clamshell box. This copy bears the ownership stamp of Elwood Evans. Evans, the best contemporary historian of the Pacific Northwest, was secretary to Isaac Ingalls Stevens, first governor of Washington Territory, and himself became third governor of the territory in 1865. Both volumes are inscribed as presented to Evans by "James Paul of Montgomery County, Pa., 1862." The most famous of all western travel narratives, and the cornerstone of any collection of Western Americana. Described by Wagner-Camp as "the definitive account of the most important exploration of the North American continent," the book describes the expedition to explore the newly acquired Louisiana Purchase, undertaken from 1804 to 1806 by ascending the Missouri River to its source, crossing the Rocky Mountains, and reaching the Pacific Ocean. In total, the expedition covered some eight thousand miles in slightly more than twenty-eight months. They brought back the first reliable information about much of the area they traversed, made contact with the Indian inhabitants as a prelude to the expansion of the fur trade, and advanced by a quantum leap the geographical knowledge of the continent. This official account of the expedition is as much a landmark in Americana as the trip itself. The narrative has been reprinted many times and remains a perennial American bestseller. The large folding map of the West, was not issued with all copies, and in fact cost almost as much as the book itsel.