Very rare first edition (1565) – virtually unacquirable for the past half century or more – of the first printed work devoted to the botanical and medicinal discoveries made in the Americas, a treatise which, through its later expansions and numerous translations, would remain “for many years the most important..... More

Rare first edition of the naturalist Charles de l’Ecluse’s (Carolus Clusius; 1526-1609) botany of Sir Francis Drake’s 1577-80 circumnavigation (the first by an Englishman), the first printed book in botanical literature to be substantially based on a specific trans-Atlantic voyage of any kind, and indeed the first substantial record of..... More

Important 16th century manuscript of colonial ordinances governing the daily life of the Indian population, written in Paraguay, signed and dated 1598 by the colonial governor. Hernandarias (1561-1634). Hernandarias was the first person born in the Americas to become governor of a European colony in the New World.The manuscript is..... More

First English edition of this eyewitness anthropological account of the Americas, chiefly Inca Peru and Aztec Mesoamerica, by the Jeusit father José de Acosta, “a more thoughtful and a more thorough account of the Indian world than anything then available” (Pagden). Acosta’s crowning achievement in the present volume is his..... More

Rare first edition of the fourteenth part of Hulsius's voyage anthology, a translation into German of Captain John Smith's Description of New England (London, 1616; Church 369), which includes an early copy of Smith's map of New England. Goodspeed (1927) claims that this part of Hulsius's Sammlung von Sechs und..... More

The title in Asher’s English translation is: Considerations and reasons of the noble Directors of the Chartered West-India Company, delivered in the assembly of their High Might. the States General of these Free United Netherlands, on the present deliberations on a Truce with the King of Spain. With Conscientious Reflections..... More

Scarce second, much augmented edition (first 1664) of this early tract on New York. The author answers the charge by the Dutch of instigating war with England, as a result of which New Amsterdam was retained by the latter. The original edition was a pamphlet of 21 pages; the present..... More

First Dutch edition of the “first and most important” of Hennepin’s writings (Howes), translated from the 1683 French original, Description de la Louisiane, and here augmented by Denys’ description of New France, BOTH ILLUSTRATED WITH NEW PLATES. This, Hennepin’s first published work, is notable for being the earliest printed account..... More

Rare first edition of the funeral-book of Maria Barbara of Portugal, Queen-consort of Spain and wife of Ferdinand VI, with a large folding plate of her catafalque. As with many books of exequies for European monarchs printed in America, the volume appeared over a year after the Queen’s death in..... More

Two rare folio-size maritime insurance policies from 1770s Marseille relating to mercantile voyages to France’s American colonies in the Caribbean, and valuable witnesses to the more practical, bureaucratic aspects of maritime trade in late 18th-century France. Each document is illustrated with the three large woodcut seals of the city and..... More

First edition of this comprehensive account of the American War of Independence, as seen from the French perspective. According to Howes, Leboucher’s account is the “best French chronicle of the American Revolution, [and] particularly valuable on naval affairs”; it includes lists of French battle casualties, vessels captured or destroyed, and..... More

First edition of this celebrated account of the Northeast following the Revolutionary War. Crevecoeur remains one of the best-known authors on 18th century American life, but here rather unusually devotes a great deal of space to accounts of the surviving Indian tribes in the region – principally the Mohawk, Oneida..... More

First edition. This book is based on Schoolcraft’s journal of a summer’s journey in upper Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota in two Indian canoes. “The author has interwoven with his narrative a large number of incidents of Indian history, personal experiences among the tribes he visited, and sketches of their principal..... More