Books

JEFFERSON, THOMAS. Notes on the State of Virginia. London: For John Stockdale, 1787. [4], 382 p. Large folding map hand colored in outline, folding table. Modern antique-style calf, very skillfully rebound in exact style of the original binding and retaining the original spine label. Gutter and top of title leaf soiled and darkened, second leaf lightly soiled and verso with offsetting from the adjacent map, else a very attractive copy with almost no foxing. The map has one neat and very early short repaired tear on the verso else is clean and largely free of foxing and offsetting. First English edition of one of Jefferson's most important printed works. Largely written in 1781 and first published in Paris, in French, in 1785, this London edition is the book's first appearance in English. The very handsome map, engraved by Samuel J. Neele, is based on the Joshua Fry and Peter Jefferson map of Virginia and, like that map, depicts parts of the surrounding states. The evolution of Jefferson's text, and its publication history, is told in considerable detail in Millicent Sowerby's catalogue of Jefferson's library. Howes J78; Clark I, 262; ESTC T147402.