DUMONT, Georges Marie.

Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane.

Item #80611

DUMONT, Georges Marie. Memoires Historiques sur la Louisiane. Paris: J.B. Bauche, 1753. 2 volumes in one, 8vo. Half-titles. 7 engraved folding maps and plates. A fine copy bound in later full morocco, with gilt decorations. a.e.g. The first edition of the first reliable account of Louisiana. "Dumont served 25 years as an officer and his memoirs cover the period from La Salle's death in 1687 down to 1740. The first volume treats of the natural history of the country and the manners of its natives. The second volume contains an historical narrative of the vast territory then known as Louisiana, with a description of the founding of New Orleans; the wars with the various tribes; also the earliest reliable account of the country watered by the Upper Mississippi and Missouri" (Eberstadt). This work contains the important account of Moncacht-Ape, the Yazoo Indian whose narrative is the first of an overland trip up the Missouri River to the Pacific Northwest Coast. "One of the best contemporary histories of French Louisiana, based on the author's twenty-five-year residence in the colony as an army officer, engineer, and planter" (Streeter). Scarce, other than the Siebert copy, first selling in 1999, this is the only other comparable copy to appear at auction in the last forty years. Field 463; Graff 1173; HowesL250; JCB III:996; Rader 1233; Sabin 9605; Streeter sale I:125;Eberstadt 123:25.

Price: $9,500.00