An Historical, Geographical, Commercial, and Philosophical View of the American United States, and of the European Settlements in America and the West-Indies

London: Printed for the Editor; J. Ridgway, York-Street; H. D. Symonds, Paternoster Row; and D. Holt, Newark, 1795. 4 volumes. 8vo. (8 1/4 x 5 inches). Book: (8 1/4 x 5 inches). Large folding maps: (21 x 16 1/2 inches). Complete first edition. 39 of 39 called-for plates. 9 engraved folding maps by Russell including the Washington map, 1 hand-colored engraving of a tobacco plant, four engraved frontispieces of Washington, Penn, Franklin, and Winterbotham by Grainger, 21 engravings of animals, plans, and views, and 5 letterpress tables printed recto verso. Volume I: A4 a4 B-4F4. [i]-viii [10] [1]-591 [1]. 4 plates including two engraved folding maps and engravings of the Falls of St. Anthony and the George Washington frontispiece. Title, Preface, Subscribers' Names, Contents, letterpress tables, text. Volume II: [A]-3R4. [6] [1]-493 [1]. 500 pp. 4 plates including 2 engraved folding maps and 2 engravings including a "View of the Ohiopyle Falls in Pennsylvania" and the engraved frontispiece of William Penn. Title, Contents, text. Volume III: [A] B-3U4 3X3. [6] [1]-525 [1]. 532 pp. 9 plates including 3 engraved folding maps, 5 engravings, 1 of which is hand-colored, and a folding letterpress table. Engraved frontispiece of Benjamin Franklin, Title, Contents, text. Volume IV: [A]4 B-3G4 A-F4 G3 H4 I2. [4] [1]-415 [1] [1]-54 [12]. 486 pp. 21 plates including 2 engraved folding maps, 4 double-sided letterpress tables including 3 folding, and 16 engravings including the frontispiece of Winterbotham and many plates of American wildlife. Title, Contents, Text, Tables, Appendices I-VI, Index, Directions to the Binder. Later speckled black half calf over period marbled paper-covered boards, with five gilt raised bands forming six compartments on spine, gilt-lettered red morocco titling-piece in second compartment and black morocco lettering-piece in third

True first London edition with Russell's large folding maps of Washington and Kentucky (printed two years after statehood; portraits of Washington and Franklin); the hand-colored tobacco plant; and over thirty other plates, including many of American wildlife.

Winterbotham was a British Baptist minister and author. He was prosecuted for giving two sermons in Plymouth, England, in 1792, in which he espoused his radical and seditious views on religious persecution and the French Revolution. Winterbotham was found guilty, fined one hundred pounds for each sermon, and sentenced to Newgate Prison. He served time there from 1793 to 1797, and wrote the present work of richly-illustrated popular history from his cell. Subjects in the detailed index at the end of Volume IV suggests the breadth of Winterbotham's comprehensive coverage: the discovery and early settlement of the Americas; the American Revolution; each of the states of the Union; the Canadian Provinces and Northwest Territory; the West Indies; and South America. The work also includes considerable information on sugar and tobacco production, with numerous tables related to West Indian imports and the value of British plantation sugar. Gephart writes that Winterbotham's work is "a digest of more than two dozen contemporary sources, including the works of Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, Belknap, Gordon, Ramsay, and Raynal, as well as census data, state constitutions, and religious tracts." Most of the book's handsome plates illustrate American wildlife such as birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles, and were executed unsigned. The well-known hand-colored plate of the tobacco plant is present here in the third volume, as is every other called-for plate and map, including Russell's often-lacking map of Washington, and the frontispieces of Washington, Franklin, and Penn. The list of plates at the rear of Volume IV erroneously calls for a plate of Niagara Falls rather than the plate of the Falls of St. Anthony that is present in all copies. [Howes, Sabin] The present example is with the elusive Russell map of the District of Columbia. Russell's map is an early English printing of the surveyor Andrew Ellicott's plan for the city, based on designs by Pierre Charles l'Enfant. Engraved by Russell, it carries the imprint "J. Russell sculpt. Constitun. Row, Grays Inn Road." It is only the fourth large-format map of Washington based on Ellicott, and while it carries no date, it was published in 1795. John Reid's map of the same came in the American edition of Winterbotham, first published in New York in 1796. The plan shows Georgetown, the street layout for Washington, the President's house, and the Capitol, with an attractive compass rose and a decorative cartouche. This Washington map by itself sold for $5,670 at auction in 2022. Here is a full list of the 9 included Russell maps in this book, all of which are folding: 1. "General Map of North America Drawn from the Best Surveys by John Russell, 1794." 2. "An Accurate Map of the United States of America According to the Treaty of Paris of 1783." 3. "Map of the Northern, or New England States of America." 4. "Map of the Middle States of America." 5. "Map of the Southern States of America." 6. "Plan of the City of Washington in the Territory of Columbia Ceded by the States of Virginia and Maryland to the United States of America and by Them Established as the Seat of Their Government after the Year 1800." 7. "Map of the State of Kentucky with the Adjoining Territories, 1794." 8. "A General Map of South America." 9. "An Accurate Map of the West Indies with the Adjacent Coast of America."

Decker 43:303. DNB XXI, pp. 693-694. ESTC T131074. Gephart 1039. Howes W581"aa." Macleod, "Civil Liberties and Baptists: William Winterbotham of Plymouth in Prison and Thinking of America." Phillips, List of Maps and Views of Washington and District of Columbia in the Library of Congress, p. 22. Sabin 104831, 104832. Verner 13.