BRICKELL, John (c.1710-1745). The natural history of North-Carolina. With an account of the trade, manners, and customs of the Christian and Indian inhabitants. Illustrated with copper-plates, whereon are curiously engraved the map of the country, several strange beasts, birds, fishes, snakes, insects, trees, and plants. Dublin: James Carson, 1737.

8vo (194 x 120 mm). Folding map, 2 engraved plates. (Some minor chipping to a few leaves.) 20th-century half calf, black morocco lettering-pieces gilt (joints slightly rubbed). Provenance: Frank C. Deering (1866-1939), Americana collector (morocco booklabel).

FIRST EDITION, THE FRANK DEERING COPY.

Brickell compiled his Natural History of North-Carolina from his own first-hand observations, though much of his work is taken from John Lawson's A New Voyage to Carolina (1709). "Brickell took the book of Lawson, reworked it in his own fashion extended or curtailed and brought it to his time...there is, besides, much more language relating to the social condition of the Colony in Brickell...while Lawson sticks close to the natural, economic, and Indian history of the province (Stephen B. Weeks, Libraries and Literature in North Carolina in the Eighteenth Century). ESTC T143839; Howes B-762 (calling for the folding engraved map and 4 plates); Sabin 7800 (calling for the folding engraved map and 2 plates, as here).

Selections from the Property of Dr. Eugene Vigil, Antiquariat Botanicum