[Tailfer, Patrick]?

Estimate

4,000 - 5,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

A New Voyage to Georgia. By a young gentleman: giving an account of his travels to South Carolina, and Part of North Carolina. To which is added, a curious account of the Indians... and a poem to James Oglethorpe, Esq., on his arrival from Georgia. London: J. Wilford, 1735
paper

FIRST EDITION, 8vo (161 x 96mm.), [ii], 62pp., dark red morocco by Hayday, decorated in blind and with gilt lettering on upper cover, marbled endpapers, gilt edges, occasional slight cropping, title slightly soiled

Literature

Clark, Travels in the Old South, 129; Howes T5; JCB European Americana, VI, p.174; Sabin 27079

Catalogue Note

RARE. Just six copies are recorded in institutional libraries, and only one at auction on ABPC, the Lionel Robinson copy sold in these rooms, 26-27 June 1986, lot 718.

The anonymous author of this work arrived at Charles Town in December 1733 and after about a month set out on foot for Savanna. He explored the Santee country, proceeded to the Pee Dee River valley, and in June visited the Cape Fear and Lake Waccamaw region of North Carolina. "The book is a pleasing and simple narrative of the condition of settlement and is full of romantic incidents and personal adventures" (Clark).

Howes tentatively attributes the work to Patrick Tailfer, about whom little is known except that he was the leader of a group of malcontents, who, in September 1739, tried to organize an independent company "for the defense of the country".