[LOUISIANA PURCHASE]. JEFFERSON, Thomas. An Account of Louisiana, Being an Abstract of Documents, in the Offices of the Departments of State, and of the Treasury. Philadelphia: printed by William Duane, 1803. An early printing.
8vo (216 x 121 mm). Folding appendix table. (Some toning, slight marginal chipping.) Modern brown quarter morocco, spine gilt-lettered. Provenance: Dudley Bell Priester (1923-2017), Mississippi River collector and bibliographer (sold Bloomsbury, 20 November 2009, lot 55C).
An early printing of the "first official description of the newly acquired territory" through the Louisiana Purchase (Wagner-Camp). "It is ironic that the acquisition of this vast region that was to have so great an effect upon the course of empire should have been heralded by this tattered, badly printed, credulous synthesis of hazy fact and ill-founded rumor" (Wagner-Camp). Howes L-493; Sabin 42177; Shaw & Shoemaker 3617; Wagner-Camp 2b:8.