(LEWIS & CLARK.) Volume of "The Evening Fire-Side" including the first magazine printing of the first returning expedition letter. Volume II only, 39 (of 52) complete weekly issues plus two partial issues, each 8 pages. 4to, modern cloth; moderate dampstaining, intermittent foxing, wear to a few issues not affecting Lewis and Clark content; early owner's signature on front free endpaper. Philadelphia, January-December 1806
The Lewis and Clark expedition reached St. Louis from the west coast on 23 September 1806. That same day, William Clark sent a long letter to his brother in Louisville summarizing the expedition. As the first report from the returning explorers, it was published in the Frankfort Palladium newspaper of 9 October and then swiftly made its way eastward. Its 8 November appearance in Philadelphia's weekly literary magazine, The Evening Fire-Side, is generally regarded as its first appearance in a magazine.
The volume also includes two other notable Lewis and Clark references. An extract from the recently published "Message from the President" pamphlet on "Discoveries in Louisiana," appears in the 12 July 1806 issue, pages 222-223 (noted in Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, page 78; and Wagner-Camp 5n). A long original editorial, "The Missouri Expedition," leads off the 29 November 1806 issue: "The exploration of an overland route to the West, is indeed a new thing under the sun, and one of the remarkable occurrences of the present century."
See Lomazow, American Periodicals 62; Wagner-Camp 4n. Volumes of the Evening Fire-Side featuring the Clark letter have appeared only rarely at auction. In the past 100 years, we find a Parke Bernet's Holliday sale on 20 April 1954, lot 658; a Swann sale on 17 January 1974, lot 42; and a Christie's sale, 3 December 2007, lot 149.
