VOYAGE A L'OUEST DES MONTS ALLEGHANYS, dans les Etats de l'Ohio, du Kentucky, et du Tennessee, et retour a Charleston par les Hautes-Carolines ... Entrepris pendant l'an x-1802, sous les auspices de ... M. Chaptal.
Paris: Levrault, Schoell et Compagnie, An X --, 1804. First edition. 8vo. (4), xi, 312 pp. Lacks the folding map. Inscribed on the verso of the half-title "Pour Monsieur J. J. / Himely, de la part de / l'auteur"; Himely was a Charleston watchmaker (in ca. 179-1810) who purchased a garden in that city on Michaux's behalf in 1792. Virginia novelist Amelie Rives's copy, with her small book label on the front pastedown and inscribed to her by one Thomas S. White, at Beaufort, S.C., in 1894 (addressing her as "Amelie Rives Chanler"). Rives (1863-1945), goddaughter of Robert E. Lee and granddaughter of Virginia Senator William Cabell Rives, was born in Richmond, but lived most of her life, early and late at Castle Hill, near Charlottesville; she published her first novel at 23 and produced a string of popular titles over the next 40 years. Rives was married to John Armstrong Chanler, a descendant of John Jacob Astor, 1888-1895, and married Russian Prince Pierre Troubetzkoy the year after her divorce. Sabin 48703. Howes M-579. Clark Old South II, 106. Streeter sale 830. Thomson 821: "Correct and impressive idea of the products and promise of the Great West, but more especially of Ohio and Kentucky." Thoroughly foxed, lacking the map, and worn, but inscribed by the author and with a nice Virginia association. Contemporary French calf (very worn, lacks lower two inches of spine, front board eroded, joints and corners worn, etc.), gilt ornaments and leather label on worn spine, marbled endpapers. (10966). Item #64630
Price: $500.00