Beschreibung:

Narrative of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition, comprising a Description of a Tour through Texas, and across the Great Southwestern Prairies, the Camanche and Caygua Hunting-grounds, with an Account of the Sufferings from Want of Food, Losses from Hostile Indians, and Final Capture of the Texans, and their March, as Prisoners, to the City of Mexico Author: Kendall, George Wilkins Place: New York Publisher: Harper and Brothers Date: 1844 Description: 2 volumes. [2], xii, [13]-405; xii, [11]-406 pp. With 4 (of 5) steel-engraved plates; folding engraved map. (8vo) 20x12 cm (8x4¾"), original blindstamped cloth, rebacked with modern black cloth, the titled portions of original spine strips laid on. First Edition. First edition of this important account of the invasion of Mexican-controlled New Mexico by the forces of the Republic of Texas. The map in Volume I, often lacking, is "Texas and Part of Mexico & The United States, showing the Route of The First Santa Fé Expedition" (40x29.2 cm). This copy lacks one of the plates in Vol. II ("City of Guanajuato"). But added to the lot is an ex-library copy of the 1846 second edition, rather worn but all the plates and the map (the latter on thicker paper than in the first edition). As Wagner-Camp describes: "Kendall's book is the best first-hand story of the ill-fated invasion of New Mexico in 1841, an unsuccessful effort to extend the western border of the Republic of Texas to the Rio Grande. The Texans, poorly supplied and led, were captured by the Mexicans and marched to prison in Mexico City. Kendall was later released and he returned to New Orleans and his newspaper, the `Picayune,' which he had helped to establish five years earlier. Accounts of some of the incidents first appeared in print in a series of articles in that newspaper in 1842 and subsequently [& partially plagiarized from Kendall] in Frederick Marryat's `Narrative of the Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet'. Lot Amendments Condition: Wear to corners; foxing within, lacking the plate as noted, good to very good. Item number: 321181