ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MANNERS, CUSTOMS, & CONDITION OF THE NORTH AMERICAN INDIANS. With Letters and Notes Written during Eight Years of Travel and Adventure among the Wildest and Most Remarkable Tribes Now Existing. With Three Hundred and Sixty Engravings, from the Author's Original Paintings. In Two Volumes
London: Henry G. Bohn, 1866. George Catlin. Tenth Edition. Hardcover. First published in 1841, this is the Deluxe Issue of the Tenth Edition of this classic with illustrations colored by hand. Two volumes (6-1/4" x 9-3/4") bound in the publisher's half red morocco over marbled boards with gilt lettering and decorations on the spine, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt; viii, 264; viii, 265, (1) pages. Illustrated with 180 numbered and magnificently hand-colored engraved plates throughout the set, including a frontispiece and 310 hand-colored etchings (on 177 leaves), some heightened with gum arabic, with three maps (one folding), all by Catlin, the first astute and sympathetic artist to observe and accurately portray Native Americans. Beginning with the Fifth Edition and continuing to the Tenth, the publisher offered special hand-colored sets at a premium, alongside the uncolored regular copies. FIELD 260 notes the scarcity of this issue, writing that a "number of copies (often announced to have been but twelve) have the etchings colored." HOWES C 241 stated that only "a few copies of the L(ater) ed(ition)s ... had pl(ate)s hand-col(ored)"; while SABIN 11537 notes that "Mr. Bohn had twelve or more copies colored after the fancy of the artist who did the work." Jenkins, A FULL HOWES: "Catlin's record of Indian life was the first and freshest account of the vanishing American Indians as they actually lived and remains one of the chief sources for all later knowledge of the North American Indians"; WAGNER-CAMP 84 (1841+ editions): "He recorded his observations of ceremonies, dances, hunting methods, forms of warfare, and the ways of daily living among the major tribes of the high plains and the Rocky Mountains"; Wheat, TRANSMISISIPPI WEST 84: "Offers an excellent picture of the Indian situation at the opening of the 19th century's fourth decade." Contents bright and fresh; rubbing and some edgewear. Very Good to Near Fine. Item #022515
Price: $17,500.00