Printed and Manuscript Americana

Portland Printed: Re-Printed at Exeter, by Henry Ranlet, 1792. 12mo. 23 pp. Contemporary limp drab wrappers, restitched, creasing and wear along extremities, small loss in bottom rear corner, lightly soiled; half-title and terminal leaf with expert restoration and with large sections supplied in facsimile; faint contemporary inscription at top of half-title; contemporary ownership inscription at top of p. 5, dated 1792 ("Ezekiel Robinsons Book 1792 Price 0/3d"); sheets toned, with scattered spotting; intermittent wear and chipping along edges; scattered expert repairs along edges; contemporary inscription along bottom of pp. 20-21 ("The voice of my regret. My dangers and my fears"); in burgundy red solander box and chemise. Evans 23221; Field 170 (later edition); Noyes, Maine Imprints 28; Shipton & Mooney 46397; ESTC W13750

A very rare narrative of a man and his family abandoned in the Maine wilderness, in rare contemporary wrappers.

Robert Forbes, an American residing with his family in Canada on the Chaudiere river, departed overland in mid-March 1784 with three
Dutch guides, intending to relocate his family to a settlement on the Kennebec. Ten days into the journey, Forbes, his wife, and five children, were tricked, robbed, and abandoned by their guides. Struggling on alone, they were assisted by a local Native American, who supplied them with moose meat and directions. By April 12th, with supplies dwindling and terrain too difficult for his wife and all but his oldest child, Forbes made camp and left his wife to seek help. Traveling by raft and foot and surviving on a couple of ounces of moose meat and their leather shoes, Forbes and his eldest son were found by hunters on April 22. A rescue party for his wife and children was immediately raised, but the camp could not be reached until June 2, fifty days since being left at camp with little to no supplies. Remarkably, Forbes's wife and one child survived.

Forbes's tale evidently struck a chord with the locals, and his narrative was set to paper by Arthur Bradman. The work was first published in Portland in 1791, and was followed by the present Exeter printing the following year. Editions followed in Windsor in 1792, Norwich in 1793, Worcester in
1793, and Philadelphia in 1794 followed. All editions prior to the Philadelphia edition are very rare.

ESTC locates only six institutional copies of this Exeter edition, while RBH locates only one other copy at auction, since 1932.