Visions of America: The Stephen White Collection

4to (254 x 203 mm). Half-title; engraved additional title, 7 (of 9) aquatints, plan of Philadelphia. (Some offsetting, marginal soiling, occasional spotting.) Early half calf, decorative paste-paper boards, spine newly gilt-lettered (extremities rubbed, renewed endpapers). Provenance: Halifax Library (small rubberstamps on plates).

FIRST EDITION of "a petulant view of U.S. life" (Howes) that contains "the earliest known published image of the White House, and the Mount Vernon plate is one of the earliest of Washington's home. The appendix to the book contains what appears to by the first British printing of Thomas Jefferson's December 1806 message announcing the completion of the Lewis and Clark expedition, as well as other western explorations (Federal Hundred 100). Abbey 648; Howes J59; Sabin 35770.