Sketches of America, A Narrative of a Journey of Five Thousand Miles through the Eastern and Western States of America
London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1819.
Hardcover. Very good. Third edition. 8vo. pp. xv, 454. Rebound in green buckram with gilt titles on spine. Old bookseller's description affixed to front free endpaper; pages a bit wavy from storage in a humid environment, but quite clean and sound. Very good. Fearon had a favorable impression of America when he set out in search of a suitable location for a group of English families to settle. But as he explored he "became disillusioned by slavery, the high cost of property, and the lack of cleanliness, generosity, liberality, and comprehension of liberty or honor...[and] advocated emigration for few Englishmen other than mechanics, small farmers, and poor people" (Hubach p. 49). He provides much interesting detail and commentary on social conditions, wages and trades, rents, taxes, natural resources, and the cost of clothes and other goods in the various locales he visited, which included New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Washington, Ohio, Kentucky, the Illinois Territory, and New Orleans. Sabin 23956; Howes F-65.
Item #14884
Price: $125.00