Apr 12, 2018 - Sale 2473

Sale 2473 - Lot 4

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(AMERICAN INDIANS.) A History of the Voyages and Adventures of John Van Delure. 96 pages. 12mo, contemporary cloth-backed boards, worn and lacking much of the outer paper; lacking free endpapers, minor dampstaining, tightly trimmed; early owners' inscriptions on pastedowns. Montpelier, VT: Wright & Sidley, 1812

Additional Details

The first Vermont printing of a possibly apocryphal tale. Van Delure (or Vandeleur) was a Dutch seaman who was accidentally left on the northwest coast in the 1780s, where he remained for nearly 7 years among the Indians and married the daughter of a chief, converting her family to Christianity. On his return to Holland, he wrote this narrative for an uncle in Philadelphia in 1796. His story is corroborated by his appearance in the 1794 narrative "Travels to the Westward" by Alonso Decalves--also sometimes regarded as apocryphal. Ayer supplement 130; Howes V24 ("b"); McCorison, Vermont Imprints 1394; Sabin 98466; Streeter sale, VII:4232; Vail 1188n. None known of this printing at auction since the 1969 Streeter sale, where it brought $350.