HERIOT, George (1766-1844). Travels though the Canadas. London: for Richard Phillips, 1807.

First edition of "the earliest and most important aquatint book published on Canada" (Hill). As postmaster-general of British North America from 1799 to 1816, Heriot devoted himself to travel into the western parts of Canada and the United States. He describes the fur trade, his voyages to the North, and cod fishery, devoting the second part of the text to a scholarly study of the Native peoples of the Americas, including Father Rasles's vocabulary of the Algonquin languages. The fine illustrations are all taken from Heriot's own work, and it was issued both in color and uncolored, as here. Hill 801; Sabin 31489; Streeter sale 3658 (colored); Abbey Travel 618 (plates only); see Prideaux, Aquatint Engraving, pp. 254-255.

Quarto (261 x 204mm). Leaf at end with direction to the binder on recto and ads on verso. Folding view of Quebec as frontispiece, hand-colored folding map, and 26 plates, 5 of which folding (offsetting from plates to text, frontispiece neatly strengthened at folds). Contemporary marbled calf (sympathetically rebacked, endleaves renewed).