Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 1
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 2
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 3
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 4
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 5
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 6
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 7
Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans - photo 8

Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans

Lot 57
07.12.2022 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Sold
$ 44 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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Archive
ID 859642
Lot 57 | Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans
Estimate value
$ 15 000 – 25 000
MACKENZIE, Alexander (c.1764-1820). Voyages from Montreal, on the River St. Laurence, through the Continent of North America, to the Frozen and Pacific Oceans; in the Years 1789 and 1793. London: T. Cadell, 1801.

Presentation copy in red morocco for General John Graves Simcoe. An exceptional copy of the first edition of the first transcontinental overland narrative, inscribed on the front free endpaper: "General Simcoe / from the Author". Simcoe is a founding father of Canada. He was the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada (from 1791-1796) and established York, now Toronto, as the capital of Upper Canada in 1793. In the American Revolutionary War he had commanded the Queen's Rangers, whom he led throughout the New Jersey-Pennsylvania theatre in 1778, and carried out successful attacks against Stony Point, Verplank's Point and Pound Ridge. He fought with Benedict Arnold in Virginia in 1781, and was still bedeviling the Americans at Yorktown, where he surrendered with Cornwallis's force. Simcoe's bookplate in this copy bears the motto, "non sibi sed patriae," i.e., not for oneself but for country.

Mackenzie's work is a classic of North American exploration. "[It] describes the extraordinary travels of the author from 1789, when he discovered the Mackenzie River, until 1793, when he crossed the continent to the Pacific in British Columbia and returned. Besides a narrative of his travels, Mackenzie also provides an excellent history of the fur trade in Canada, as well as vocabularies of several Indian languages. The 'Map of Mackenzie's track from Fr. Chipewyan to the Pacific Ocean' was a milestone and, as Wheat says, "at once questions began to be raised about the now patent inadequacies of all prior maps of the American Far West.' A cornerstone in any collection of North American travel and exploration" (Best of the West). A foundational work of Canadiana inscribed for a founding father of Canada. Reese, Best of the West 22; Howes M-133 ("b"); Hill 1063; Sabin 43414; Streeter sale 3653.

Quarto (270 x 207mm). Frontispiece portrait, 3 folding maps, one of which hand-colored in outline, errata leaf (some offsetting to maps, light toning throughout, a few leaves with pale spotting, some spotting and offsetting to title from frontispiece). Contemporary red morocco gilt (spine sunned, light scuffing to extremities). Provenance: John Graves Simcoe, 1752-1806 (presentation inscription; armorial bookplate) – Ralph O. Olson of Bellingham, WA (receipt from Dawson's dated May, 1935 laid in).
Place of origin:Canada, United Kingdom
Auction house category:Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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