JANSON, Charles William. The Stranger in America: containing Observations made during a Long Residence in that Country, on the Genius, Manners and Customs of the People of the United States. London: Albion Press ... for James Cundee, 1807. Quarto. xxii, pp. 500. Contemporary half red morocco marble paper boards (some wear to marble of the front boards). Lacks three advertisement leaves which are sometimes found. Additional title illustrated with original aquatint sepia vignette of Philadelphia, the author's favorite American city. All text is present. Seven of the original eight aquatint sepia prints are lacking. But extra illustrated with eight uncolored steel engraved prints from 1830 and 1831, including a depiction of New York City's Freemason headquarters and a timber raft on Lake Champlain. .

First edition. A book with ethnographical, geographical, and historical commentary on and analysis of America.

The persuasions of friends, together with the favorable opportunities of obtaining a thorough acquaintance with the true character of the Americans, afforded by a long residence among them, and the avocations he pursued during that time, have at length induced him to give to the world his ideas on the subject. Charles William Janson lived in America from 1793 to 1805, beginning in Rhode Island (where he failed in business) before travelling in the American South, especially Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia, where he was defrauded in the Yazoo land scheme. He did not like what he saw, or at least felt that the rise of Jeffersonian democracy was guided by the devil. Clark sums up the book well: Janson draws a picture of unrelieved black, but one worthy of attention because of the length of his stay and the breadth of his interests. He covers an astonishing variety of subjects in a loose topical arrangement.... Howes called the work a petulant view of U.S. life. It is an early, and fascinatingly negative, overview and analysis of America as its own country in the process of rapidly developing a cultural identity from the disparate perspectives of distinct immigrant groups, slaves, and Native Americans. It's an ethnographical approach to very early America, so, the author's biases aside, the work provides insight into the birth of what it actually means to be an American person. This more critical view of American customs and their origins are especially compelling in the modern context of an America that many see as in decline, and as culturally shallow.

Although Janson's book treats all of America, the illustrations are predominantly of Philadelphia. The author explains in the Preface: Should it be objected that too great a proportion of [the illustrations] are taken from one city, the author's excuse is, that, in truth scarcely any other city in America contains any edifice worthy of delineation. The plates are direct copies from those appearing in the second edition of William Birch's City of Philadelphia.

Abbey Travel 648; Howes J59; Sabin 35770.