Hamilton's Itinerarium, Being a Narrative of a Journey from Annapolis, Maryland through Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts and New Hampshire from May to September, 1744
Saint Louis: Printed only for private distribution by William K. Bixby, 1907. Limited edition, #344 of 487 copies. Frontispiece portrait, plates, facsimiles, and a large fold-out map. Cloth over boards with leather spine and fore corners. Tall octavo. xxvii, 263 pages.
Dr. Alexander Hamilton travelled from his home in Annapolis, Maryland to York, Maine in 1744, and diligently recorded his experiences and observations of the people and places he encountered. Hamilton's travel diary is an invaluable source of information on the sights, scenes, men, and manners in the British colonies in the mid-18th century and is widely cited by scholars of colonial America.
Dr. Hamilton dedicated and gave the original manuscript diary to an Italian friend, Onorio Razolini, and it remained unnoticed and unpublished until this limited edition 1907. A printer's note preceding the Introduction traces the provenance of the original manuscript.
This is copy #190 of 487, numbered and initialed by the printer, William K. Bixby, on a preliminary page describing the history of the manuscript. Bixby has additionally inscribed and signed this copy to William Bayard Van Rensselaer of Abany, New York, along with a handwritten note on separate stationery, laid in. Van Rensselaer died a little over a month after the date of the inscription and note--August 19, 1909.
Fine copy in a very good slipcase. Edge wear to slipcase with separations along a few joints.
Item #1818
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