Lettres sur les nouveaux établissemens qui se forment dans les parties occidentales des Etats-Unis d'Amérique.

First edition of the illustrated French translation, with a folding map (cf. Sabin 5568).

Only three copies recorded in the French Union Catalogue (BnF, Ministère des Affaires étrangères, Draguignan).

Contemporary-style half calf, smooth spine rubbed, joints split at head and foot, marbled paper boards, marbled endpapers and pastedowns, marbled edges, in a slightly later binding.

Light foxing, a paper flaw in the right margin of the final leaf not affecting the text.

It should be noted that the translator mistook the genitive form for part of the author’s surname, spelling it “Birkbecks”.

The American first edition appeared in 1818 under the title of “Letters from Illinois”, and went through no fewer than seven editions in English.

"In directing settlers to the prairies lands of the West [this book] exercised a widespread influence, and incidentally brought down on [the] author the hearty vituperation of William Cobbett, who was in the pay of eastern land speculators". Cf. Dict. of amer. biogr., II, 289.

Born into a Quaker family, Morris Birkbeck (1764–1825), an Anglo-American adventurer and Illinois pioneer, was one of America’s leading journalists and a prominent champion of the anti-slavery cause.