CARVER, Jonathan (1732-1780). Travels through the Interior Parts of North-America, in the Years 1766, 1767, and 1768. London: Printed for the author and sold by J. Walter, 1778.
8vo (218 x 137 mm). 2 engraved folding maps and 4 engraved plates. Contemporary marbled boards (rebacked in calf to style, minor wear to boards, new endpapers). Provenance: Roger K. Larson (bookplate)
FIRST EDITION OF ONE OF THE EARLIEST AND BEST ACCOUNTS OF THE FRONTIER IN MINNESOTA AND WISCONSIN. "Carver, one of the English soldiers wounded and captured at the massacre of Fort William Henry by the French and Indians in 1757, gives a vivid though short eye-witness account of the battle. Though a prisoner of the French and Indians for only three days, when he escaped to Fort Edwards, his is one of the most spirited accounts of the famous massacre. His later frontier experiences in Minnesota and Wisconsin, though formerly discredited, have been accepted as one of the earliest and best accounts of pioneer days in this region" (Vail). Wheat notes that the map, "A plan of Captain Carver's travels in the interior parts of North America in 1766 and 1777" is one of the earliest to show "actual results of British exploration in the interior." Included at end is a vocabulary of the Chipeway language and a zoological history of the interior of North America. Carver popularized the terms "Oregon" and "The Shining Mountains," though he did not coin either, and wrote the clearest statement of the "pyramidal height-of-land" concept and speculated on the existence of a more westerly Continental Divide. Field 251; Graff 622 (3rd ed.); Howes C-215; Jones 563; Lande 108; Pilling, Algonquin 58; Sabin 11184; Streeter III:1772; Vail 654; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West 175. A FINE COPY.

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