A Fine Collection of American Literature and History

Boston: Manning & Loring, 1795. In two volumes. First American edition. 12mo. Edited by John Carey. Without the engraved frontispiece portrait found in some copies. Three-quarter tan calf over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in gilt, green and red morocco spine labels, boards lightly soiled, damage in marbled paper of front and rear board of second volume, spine-ends slightly worn; marbled endpapers; abrasion in front blank of each volume from removed ownership signature, small loss at top corner of title-page of each volume from removed ownership signature; dampstaining to prelims in second volume. Sabin 101726; Evans 29737

A scarce collection of George Washington's important Revolutionary War era letters written to the Continental Congress from June 1775 to December 1778, edited by John Carey, brother of renowned Philadelphia publisher Mathew Carey. The text of the letters were transcribed from the originals kept at the Secretary of State's office in Philadelphia, then the nation's capital, in the early 1790s.