Books and Manuscripts

Janson, Charles William
The Stranger in America…
London: Published by James Cundee, Albion Press, 1807. First edition. 4to. 22, 499, (1) pp. Illustrated with an engraved frontispiece with aquatint, engraved and aquatint vignette title-page, eight engraved and aquatint plates, one engraved plan, and one in-text engraving. Three-quarter tan calf over green marbled paper-covered boards, green morocco spine label, stamped in blind and in gilt, boards very lightly worn and rubbed, bottom of spine chipping; marbled edges; armorial book-plate of Sarah Phillott on front paste-down; offsetting from plates on to text; scattered darkening to text. 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. Finally, 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.“