Theodore Winthrop (1828–1861)

Published 1863 ( ©1862) First Edition. Tight, clean near fine. Brown stamped boards with gilt lettering on spine.

... "A twenty-four-year-old New Englander of aristocratic Yankee stock toured the territories of California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia. A novelized memoir of his travels, it became a bestseller when it was published shortly after the author's untimely death in the Civil War." The author, Major Winthrop, was one of the first Union officers killed in the Civil War in 1861.

A novelization of the author's Northwest tour made in 1853, providing a vivid picture of the nature and culture of the pacific Northwest and descriptive conversations with the Chinook, Kallapooga, Haida Indians, among others. His narrative is told with considerable humor, and contains 4 pages of Chinook vocabulary. The second work, "Isthmiana, " was a sketch found among Winthrop's papers, a rapidly written journal of his travels in the Isthmus of Panama.

HOWES W584. PILLING 4182. GRAFF 4715. TWENEY 89, 86. SMITH 11130.… (més)

Though often elitist and prejudicial, Winthrop's travel took chutzpah - though some of the details may have perhaps been exaggerated, who knows...

Still a fairly remarkable tale, though, and one featuring lots of romantic naturalistic literary flourish, while remaining quite readable.

Also, in his "Tale of The Dalles", he recounts an Indian legend of what would become known as the great Bretz floods long before Bretz advanced his controversial theory of monumental ice age flooding that scoured the landscape of Eastern Washington.… (més)