America.- Warre (Capt. Henry James) Sketches in North America and the Oregon Territory, first edition, 20 hand-coloured lithograph plates on 16 sheets, lithograph map with outline hand-colouring, 2 plates with diagonal crease through image with repair and necessary retouching to surface, several other plates with marginal repairs, some marginal soiling but most images themselves clean, without the printed dedication leaf found in some but not all copies, original printed wrappers bound in, all plates, text leaves and wrappers mounted on stubs, modern red half morocco, upper joint cracked at foot, [Abbey, Travel 656; Graff 4543; Howes W-114 ('the only western color-plates comparable in beauty to those by Bodmer'); Sabin 101455; Smith 10727; Wagner-Camp-Becker 157], folio, Dickinson & Co., [1848].

⁂ "One of the rarest and handsomest of Western books. In 1845 Captain Warre was sent by the British government to the Oregon Territory, at the height of the dispute with the United States over its ownership, to scout out the country in case British troops were brought into Oregon. He travelled overland across Canada to the Pacific Northwest, visiting present-day Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. By the time he returned the political crisis had been resolved. Warre, an accomplished artist, executed these illustrations on the spot, and published them upon his return to London." (Best of the West, 105)