Apr 16, 2013 - Sale 2310

Sale 2310 - Lot 213

Price Realized: $ 1,140
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
ONLY COPY OF THE FIRST AMERICAN BOOK DEVOTED TO THE FALLS? (NEW YORK--NIAGARA.) Travellers' Rough Notes, on Niagara Falls. 32 pages. 16mo, original plain wrappers, detached and moderately worn; moderate foxing. Black Rock, NY: Smith H. Salisbury, 1827
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Additional Details

The first 12 pages of this curious little pamphlet are devoted to "Rough Notes of an Old Traveller," which compare the anonymous author's 1797 visit to Niagara Falls with another visit in 1827. The second and final chapter is a charming and humorous account of the falls titled "Dick Wildfire's Narrative," signed in type "Rich: Wildfire" and dated 14 June 1827. Neither of these sections appears to have been published elsewhere.
This pamphlet is not listed in Dow's comprehensive Niagara Falls bibliography, nor does he list any earlier American prose books or pamphlets devoted solely to the Falls (Maude's "Visit to the Falls of Niagara" had been published in London in 1826, while Alexander Wilson's poem "The Foresters" had appeared in 1818). Not in Sabin, Shaw & Shoemaker, Severance's Buffalo Imprints (which includes other Black Rock imprints), or WorldCat. No other copies known at auction, and quite possibly unique.