Sep 30, 2021 - Sale 2580

Sale 2580 - Lot 121

Price Realized: $ 910
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
DAVID CROCKETT. Group of 3 books: Tour to the North and Down East / Exploits and Adventures in Texas / Narrative of the Life. 12mo, various bindings and conditions, all collating as complete. Various places, 1835-39
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Additional Details

These three works were produced to fulfill contemporary curiosity regarding the Tennessee frontiersman, congressman, and Alamo hero. All are billed as "written by himself" but were probably done by ghostwriters.

"An Account of Col. Crockett's Tour to the North and Down East." Frontispiece plate. 234, 34 pages. Publisher's cloth, moderate wear; intermittent foxing; early bookplate and inscriptions on front endpapers. First edition. Among other highlights, this was probably the first tourist description of the infamous Five Points neighborhood in New York, about which Crockett proclaimed "I would rather risque myself in an Indian fight than venture among these creatures after night." Anbinder, Five Points, page 26; Howes C896; Sabin 17565. Philadelphia, 1835.

"Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas." Frontispiece plate. [4]. viii, [13]-216 pages. Publisher's cloth, moderate wear and fading, lacking spine label; moderate foxing and toning. First edition. "Ingenious pseudo-autobiography, purportedly printed from the manuscript found with the baggage of a Mexican general slain at San Jacinto"--Howes S654 ("aa"). Sabin 83778. None traced at auction since 1952. Philadelphia, 1836.

"Narrative of the Life of David Crockett of the State of Tennessee." 211 pages. Contemporary boards, worn and rebacked; moderate foxing; early owners' inscriptions and later bookplate. A posthumous later printing. Cincinnati, OH, 1839.