8vo (208x129 mm). 2 engraved folding maps, one engraved folding plan. (Small corner of one map torn away, some minor dampstaining to a few leaves, a few other minor stains.) 19th-century half calf, marbled boards, spine gilt (lettering-piece mostly torn away, some light wear). Provenance: Francis Griffins (early signature); collector's bookplate, a few pencil marks. 

FIRST EDITION, "one of the earliest, and certainly the fullest, of works that had hitherto been published on the Hudson Bay Territory" (Hill). Robson argued in support of breaking up the Hudson Bay Company's monopoly, thus opening the resources of the bay to British traders in the interest of keeping the resources out of the hands of the French.  The Company kept its operations secret, and Robson's account (by an "early corporate renegade") was "the only first hand description published and circulated about the HBC's activities in the first half of the eighteenth century." (Peter C. Newman, Empire of the Bay, 2000, p.128). Field 1312; Hill 1477; Lande 1418; Sabin 72259; Staton & Tremaine/TPL 217; Streeter Sale VI:3648.