Books and Manuscripts

Gordon, William
The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America: Including an Account of the Late War; and of the Thirteen Colonies, From Their Origin to That Period
London: Printed for the Author; and sold by Charles Dilly; and James Buckland, 1788. In four volumes. First edition. 8vo. Illustrated with nine engraved folding maps and plates. Three-quarter black morocco over marbled paper-covered boards, stamped in blind and in gilt, rebacked, boards and spines slightly worn and rubbed; all edges trimmed; Cornell Library book-plate on front paste-down of each volume; library number in ink on verso of title-page in each volume; small spotting and short closed tears along some folds in plates; foxing to title-page of second volume, top corner of prelims in same creased and worn. Howes G-256; Sabin 28011; Larned 134; Gephart 996; Reese, The Revolutionary Hundred 86; ESTC T117050

An important firsthand account of the American Revolution's most critical moments, considered the “first full-scale history of this war by an American.” (Howes). Gordon, a dissenting minister from England sympathetic to the patriot cause, moved to America in 1770 where he became a pastor of a Congregational church at Roxbury, Massachusetts. He conceived of his history of the Revolution as early as 1776, and was later aided by both Jefferson and Washington in its completion. Considered the “most impartial and reliable of the numerous historians of the American Revolution” (Sabin), it is now known that Gordon borrowed heavily from the Annual Register, and incorporated numerous passages from contemporary David Ramsay’s History of the Revolution of South Carolina.