Buy this book on-line

WINTERBOTHAM, W : AN HISTORICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, COMMERCIAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE

BOOK WINTERBOTHAM, W. AN HISTORICAL, GEOGRAPHICAL, COMMERCIAL AND PHILOSOPHICAL VIEW OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND OF THE EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS IN AMERICA AND THE WEST-INDIES; 4 VOLUMES. New York: Printed by Tiebout and O'Brien for John Reid, 1796. First American edition, with additions and corrections. vi,[2], 590/[4],493 pp/[4],519 pp/[4],516 + [19] pp. With 25 of 26 listed plates (lacks the 'phantom' Plan of Washington), including the handcolored plate in Volume III (tobacco plant in bloom), the first regularly published color plate issued in an American book (published by Smith, Reed and Wayland, New York). 8vo., original tree calf, lacking spines, volumes I and IV both boards detached, volumes II and III front boards detached, rear joints cracked. Boards worn, blocks intact. Moderate to heavy foxing throughout, age toning to page edges, offset from engravings to some text pages. Marvellous engravings of animals of the Americas and the West Indies. Winterbotham spent time in Newgate Prison for two sermons preached in 1792; he wrote this edition while in Newgate. With the ink signature of Thomas Fisher of Philadelphia, a Quaker merchant who with his younger brothers, was arrested in 1777 by a group of American radicals. The brothers refused to swear an oath of allegiance based on religious principles, but were accused of being Loyalists and were imprisoned in the Masonic Hall, and later exiled to Winchester, Va. After the war, Thomas and his wife Sarah returned, and Thomas restablished his mercantile and philanthropic activities. The two fled Philadelphia during the Yellow Fever epidemic (1793) and settled near Germantown. A few volumes also bear handwritten bookplates of a later date.

Bibliophile Bookbase for antiquarian books, maps and prints.