The Travels of Capts. Lewis & Clarke, from St. Louis, by way of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, to the Pacific Ocean . . . (with Map of the Country, Inhabited by the Western Tribes of Indians . . . ) Lewis Antique Maps

Lewis / 1809 / The Travels of Capts. Lewis & Clarke, from St. Louis, by way of the Missouri and Columbia Rivers, to the Pacific Ocean . . . (with Map of the Country, Inhabited by the Western Tribes of Indians . . . ) (Safe 3, 119019) Octavo. Contemporary half calf over marbled boards, red leather spine label. Vellum-tipped corners. ix,309 pages plus folding engraved map. Minimal light scattered foxing. Map very nice and clean. A handsome very good example. First London edition of the Lewis and Clark Apocrypha , an unauthorized and highly sought contemporary account of the great transcontinental expedition of 1804 1806. Published five years before the official edition of 1814, this volume offered British and European readers their first extended narrative of the Corps of Discovery s crossing to the Pacific, albeit one built from a patchwork of genuine documents, conjecture, and plagiarism. The text incorporates President Thomas Jefferson s 1806 Message to Congress, letters from William Clark to his brother and to Governor William Henry Harrison, and an array of material derived from earlier explorers. Passages were freely adapted from Jonathan Carver s Travels through the Interior Parts of North America (1778), Alexander Mackenzie s Voyages (1801), and Sergeant Patrick Gass s Journal of the Voyages and Travels (1807). Despite its spurious origins, it remained the only substantial account of the expedition available to the public until the official Biddle-Allen edition appeared in 1814. The volume is accompanied by an engraved frontispiece map, Map of the Country Inhabited by the Western Tribes of Indians, based on Matthew Carey s 1805 Louisiana map, but with significant revisions acknowledging the Lewis and Clark route. As noted by Wheat (Mapping the Transmississippi West 259), these include the addition of the rivers Jefferson, Madison, and Gallatin along the Upper Missouri, and the identification of Fort Clatsop near the mouth of the Columbia River one of the earliest printed cartographic references to the explorers Pacific encampment. It is interesting to note that the map in this edition was engraved by Samuel John Neele who also engraved the map in the 1814 one-volume London quarto edition of the Biddle-Allen text. This unauthorized compilation emerged amid enormous public curiosity about the newly acquired Louisiana Territory and the recent expedition s discoveries. With no official report yet available, publishers quickly assembled pseudo-narratives to satisfy readers appetite for adventure in the Far West. The anonymous compiler borrowed heavily from authentic governmental documents and travelers accounts, producing a hybrid text that masqueraded as the explorers own words. According to Sabin this edition contains "some documents not published in any other edition, including Observations on the Voyage of William Dunbar and Dr. Hunter, extracted from their Journals." Although later condemned by Elliott Coues as an audacious forgery and dishonest patchwork, the book retains importance for its reflection of early nineteenth-century transatlantic interest in American exploration and for its inclusion of contemporary materials otherwise unavailable in English. The 1809 London edition stands as a bibliographical curiosity and a fascinating artifact of the information vacuum that surrounded the Lewis and Clark Expedition prior to the appearance of the official narrative. Its map, one of the earliest engraved depictions to register the expedition s influence on western geography, adds further value. Despite its spurious text, the Apocrypha occupies a meaningful place in the printed legacy of the Corps of Discovery testimony to how news of the American frontier first circulated in the absence of sanctioned authori.