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Author: Talbot, Edward Allen, Esq.
Title: Five Years’ Residence in The Canada: Including A Tour Through Part of the United States Of America In The Year 1823.
Place Published: London
Publisher:Printed for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown and Green,
Date Published: 1824
Description:

2 vols, 8vo, recent blue cloth spines and drab boards and printed paper label (period style) with new endpapers, xvi, 419 & vii, [1], [9]-400 pages, untrimmed. Lithograph frontispiece in each volume. First edition. From the Irish-born Talbot, one of the better accounts of Canadian life of the period. As the Dictionary of Canadian Biography notes, "Like his father and brother John, Edward was totally unsuited for the life of a pioneering farmer, but in his case it was largely because of his scientific and literary interests." (Per the Dictionary, Talbot's scientific interests were in part manifested by his concurrent work on his schemes for perpetual motion, which are not, alas, mentioned here.) Talbot's observations touch in part on the sexual mores of the Canadians: "I should be sorry, as I have already observed, to insinuate, that there are no women of virtue on this side of the Atlantic. . . . It is not likely, if at all possible, that virtue can abound in any country in which the violation of chastity is not considered a crime of the first magnitude. And so far is this from being the case in Upper Canada or in the United States, that an unmarried female with a baby in her arms is as much respected, and as little obnoxious to public animadversion, as she would be, had she preserved her virtue with a Vestal's fidelity." He also has critical observations on American camp meetings, his visit to Niagara Falls, the varieties of life met with in the waterfront hotels of Quebec, and such natural wonders as the firefly, which "of all nocturnal insects, exhibits an appearance the most pleasing to the curious and contemplative mind." The frontispieces in each volume—a Canadian log hut and an Indian wig-wam—are pleasing examples of early lithography. Later owner's small ink ownership stamp (somewhat modified to strike out the name) to each title page. Howes T-9.

Donated by Garrett Scott, Ann Arbor, MI.

Some scattered light foxing and soiling, with somewhat heavier spotting to the second volume’s frontispiece; spine labels a little soiled; a very good set.