McKenney, Thomas L., and James Hall

3 volumes, folio (19 3/4 x 13 7/8 in.; 502 x 355 mm). 120 handcolored lithographed plates, including 117 portraits after C. B. King, 3 scenic frontispieces after Rindisbacher, leaf of lithographed maps and table, 17 pages of facsimile signatures of subscribers, leaf of statements on the genuineness of the portrait of Pocahontis; usual foxing, browning, and offsetting, particularly to vol. 1, vol. 1 also dampstained with many consequently weakened margins infilled with Japanese tissue, most of these repairs are quite minor, but the first and last few leaves (and especially the frontispiece) are more severely affected. Modern half brown morocco over maroon cloth, red morocco spine labels. Gray cloth folding-cases.

Descended in the family of Edward C. Biddle, the original publisher.

BAL 6934; Field 992; Howes M129; Reese, American Color Plate Books 24; Sabin 43410a

plates neatly hinged to linen guards, some light marginal dampstaining to fore-edges of text leaves at the beginning of each volume, occasional foxing and offsetting, mostly restricted to text with plates generally remarkably clean. Nineteenth-century half red morocco; worn, rebacked.
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First edition (BAL states: Titles: volume 1, A; volume 2, B; volume 3, A. Plates: War Dance, A; Red Jacket, C). An attractively colored copy of "one of the most distinctive and important books in Americana" (Reese). These superb lithographs are faithful reproductions of portraits painted from life by Charles Bird King or copied and improved) by him from portraits by James O. Lewis. The original paintings later perished in the disastrous Smithsonian fire of 1865, so their appearance in McKenney and Hall's Indian Tribes is the only record of the likeneses of many of the most prominent Indian leaders of the nineteenth century: Sequoyah, Red Jacket, Major Ridge, Cornplanter, and Osceola were all numbered among King's sitters. 

McKenney was the first director of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and he provided the biographies, many based on personal interviews, that accompany the portraits. Hall, an Illinois lawyer and journalist, wrote the long general history of the North American Indian. Both authors, not unlike George Catlin, whom they tried to enlist in their enterprise, saw their work as a means of preserving an accurate record of a rapidly disappearing culture.

Although History of the Indian Tribes of North America was eventually hugely successful and often reprinted in both folio and octavo formats, the first edition appeared haltingly, as is shown by the changing imprints on the title-pages. Four publishers, three lithographic firms, and more than a decade were required to bring this first edition to completion. A remarkably clean and bright set.