James, Edwin, and Stephen H. Long

Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, performed in the Years 1819, and '20 & under the Command of Major Stephen H. Long. Philadelphia: H. C. Carey and Lea, 1822–1823



3 volumes: two 8vo text volumes in half-sheets (9 1/2 x 6 in.; 241 x 152 mm, uncut) and atlas (12 x 9 1/8 in.; 305 x 232 mm). 3 full-sheet engraved maps after Long by Young and Delleker, 8 engraved plates after S. Seymour and T. R. Peale (one handcolored); text foxed, sometimes severely, most plates severely foxed at fore-edge margin, plate 6 ("View of the Insulated Table Lands") also frayed and worn at fore-edge. Original gray-brown boards, printed labels on spines of text volumes and front cover of atlas; hinges broken with several covers detached, spines worn with loss, extremities worn. Uniform half brown morocco folding-case (atlas) and slipcases and chemises (text).

American Imprints 12942; Graff 2188; Howes J41; Sabin 35682; Streeter sale 3:1783; Wagner-Camp 25:1; Wheat, Mapping the Transmississippi West 353; see Nicholas and Halley, Stephen Long and American Frontier Exploration (1995)

First edition. Edwin James was the botanist, geologist, and surgeon for this important government expedition, which added significantly to earlier discoveries of Lewis and Clark and Zebulon Pike. James also served as the editor and compiler of this text. Additional members of the expedition included Major Stephen Long, the commander; Thomas Say, naturalist and philologist; Titian Peale, draughtsman and assistant naturalist; and Samuel Seymour, landscape artist. The plates depict Oto Indians, views of the Plains, and buffalo. Appendices to the text comprise astronomical and meteorological tables and Indian vocabularies.

Major Long was the principal proponent of government-sponsored exploration of the West following the War of 1812. He travelled farther than Pike or Lewis and Clark, and blazed trails that were later followed by Fremont, Powell, and others. His most important contributions remain his detailed maps of the West, although he has long been derided for having identified the Great Plains as the "Great American Desert."