[HERIOT, GEORGE (1766-1844)]. Travels Through the Canadas Containing a Description of the Picturesque Scenery on Some of the Rivers and Lakes; With an Account of the Productions, Commerce, and Inhabitants of Those Provinces. To Which Is Subjoined a Comparative View of the Manners and Customs of Several of the Indian Nations of North and South America. London: Richard Phillips, 1807.
FIRST EDITION. Leather-bound; hardcover; quarto (27 x 21 x 4.5 cm.) pp. xii, 602, [2]. English text. Handsomely bound in contemporary half calf gilt, marbled paper-covered boards. With 27 aquatint plates by Stadler and Lewis after Heriot (6 being folding) and a folding coloured map to rear. Condition: VERY GOOD. Collated complete. Binding tight and secure. Very slight rubbing to boards. Some light toning and offsetting. Without previous ownership markings. A most handsome copy.
Notes: First edition of "the earliest and most important aquatint book published on Canada" (Hill). As postmaster-general of British North America from 1799 to 1816, Heriot devoted himself to travel into the western parts of Canada and the United States. He describes the fur trade, his voyages to the North, and cod fishery, devoting the second part of the text to a scholarly study of the Native peoples of the Americas, including Father Rasles's vocabulary of the Algonquin languages. The fine illustrations are all taken from Heriot's own work. [Bobins 50; Hill 801; Sabin 31489; Streeter sale 3658 (also colored); Abbey Travel 618 (plates only); see Prideaux, Aquatint Engraving, pp. 254-255].
