PBA Galleries

400, [1] pp. Profusely illustrated from photographs, engravings etc., including frontispiece portrait; 10 double-page panoramic plates. (4to) 29x21.5 cm  (11½x8½"), original ochre cloth stamped in black and gilt, top edge gilt.

This the first "complete" edition Powell's account of his descent down the Colorado, of which only about 100 copies were printed. Part of the text appeared originally in 1875 in Powell’s Report of the Exploration of the Colorado River of the West and its Tributaries. As the author explains in his preface, he bowed to outside pressures to produce a popular volume about his explorations, of which this is the result. Howes notes this as the  “First complete narrative; his earlier reports were largely devoted to scientific data." Farquhar, in The Colorado River and the Grand Canyon (#43), describes it at greater length: "One of the basic documents of Colorado River history. This book differs in so many respects from the report of 1875...that it is here given the status of a separate title. Not only has the narrative been revised and augmented, but there are several new chapters and a great many new illustrations..." This copy formerly in the Institute Free Library, Wilmington, Delaware, with bookplate, rear pocket, occasional inkstamps and blindstamps, traces from removed spine labels and markings, all fairly unobtrusive.