Janson, Charles William. The Stranger in America: Containing Observations Made During a Long Residence in That Country, on the Genius, Manners and Customs of the People of the United States...

London: Printed for James Cundee at the Albion Press, 1807. First edition. 4to. 22, 499, (1), (6, ads) pp. Illustrated with a hand-colored engraved frontispiece with aquatint, engraved hand-colored vignette title-page with aquatint, and eight engraved and aquatint plates, one engraved plan, and one in-text engraving. Full navy blue morocoo, decorated in gilt, joints rubbed; top edge gilt, other edges trimmed; gilt dentelles; marbled endpapers; by Sangorski & Sutcliffe; scattered light spotting and soiling to text. From the library of Valentine Hollingsworth, and with his morocco book-plate on front paste-down. Abbey, Travel 648; Reese, The Federal Hundred 100; Howes J-59; Sabin 35770; Clark I:II 99

First edition of Charles William Janson's “petulant view of U.S. life.” (Howes). Janson, an Englishman by birth, resided in the United States from 1793-1805/6. “Having failed in America in both law and business and having been repelled by the rise of Jeffersonian Jacobinism, 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…” (Clark). The breadth of these topics is astoundingly diverse, and includes “Singular Manner of catching a Shark,” the dead of Bunker Hill, “Multiplication of Wild Pigeons in New England," the “Effect of Republican Principles," “Method of rearing Hogs,” “Peale's Museum,” “Wretched State of the Roads about Washington,” “Eminent Living Actors,” “Bee-Hunting,” “Treatment of Slaves,” “The Culture of Indian Corn,” “Thomas Paine,” and much more.

The book contains fine aquatint views of Philadelphia and Boston, and is noted for containing the earliest known published image of the White House, and one of the earliest published views of George Washington's home at Mount Vernon. According to Reese, the appendix “contains what appears to be the first British printing of Thomas Jefferson's December 1806 message announcing the completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition.“

Uncommon with hand-colored plates.

This lot is located in Philadelphia.