PBA Galleries

[2], 395 pp. (8vo) 24.4x14.2 cm (9¾x5½”), original boards, printed paper spine label housed in red cloth custom clamshell box.

One of the most significant accounts of early 19th-century travel in the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and the first book by one of the more notable literary men of the time.  

Flint's travels took him to New Orleans, Covington, Alexandria, Cape Girardeau, St. Charles, and New Madrid.  He comments on virtually every aspect of life as he saw it in the region: commerce, slavery, morality, geography, agriculture, transportation, etc.  He takes special note of the flurry of land speculation, as well as the penchant of the sons of Kentucky planters for dissipation and gambling.  Although Flint's sympathy for the people he encountered tends to blind him to some of the more objectionable aspects of life in the valley, his is a most important work.  He returned from his journey expecting to die due to his ill health.  Instead, he recovered and began his quite estimable literary career.  This book is preceded by only three extant pamphlet sermons and orations