Raynors HCA 2018-03
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 3/15/2018
Book, “THE STRANGER IN AMERICA”, Charles William JANSON, London, 1807. engraved title, nine tinted plates, and a plan of Philadelphia. Quarto. 20th-century three-quarter morocco and marbled boards, gilt, t.e.g. Corners bumped, extremities rubbed. A few leaves with some light, even toning, some offsetting from plates. Internally clean. Very good. anson lived in America from 1793 to 1805 and did not like what he saw, or at least felt that the rise of Jeffersonian democracy was guided by the devil. Clark sums up the book well: "Janson draws a picture of unrelieved black, but one worthy of attention because of the length of his stay and the breadth of his interests. He covers an astonishing variety of subjects in a loose topical arrangement...." "A petulant view of U.S. life" - Howes. In fact, the man's ill temper is quite amusing. He lived for some time in Rhode Island, where he failed in business, and travelled in the South, equally hating Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia, where he was defrauded in the Yazoo land scheme. The handsomely produced book contains nine tinted plates depicting six scenes in Philadelphia, one of Mount Vernon, and one each in Boston and New York. The view on the engraved titlepage is the earliest known published image of the White House. Little known is the fact that the appendix to the book contains, on pages 482-489, what appears to be the first British printing of Thomas Jefferson's December 1806 message announcing the completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition, as well as other western explorations.
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