‘Should you happen to fall in with Catlin’s Letters on the North American Indians, I would strongly recommend a perusal of them for the purpose of acquiring a knowledge of the habits and customs of those tribes among whom he was placed. Catlin’s sketches are true to life, and are powerfully descriptive of their appearance and character.’”
The World of Fashion, London.
“We venture to affirm of Mr. Catlin’s book, which can be said of very few others, that it is impossible to open it at any page, and not continue its perusal with unmingled satisfaction. It has too the rare quality of being written by a man who says nothing but that which he knows, who describes nothing but that which he has seen. We feel while reading the book as in the society of a man of extraordinary observation, of great talent, of wonderful accomplishments; and most cordially and earnestly do we recommend this invaluable book to the patronage of the public generally, and to the perusal of our readers in particular.”
Weekly Dispatch, London.
“A person might well be startled and frightened at the appearance of two such large volumes as these on only the manners, customs, and condition of the North American Indians, a race of savages now almost extinct. With all this complaint against the immense bulk of a book, moreover, on such a subject, we are bound to confess that not only is it the least wearisome of large books that we have for a long time seen, but that it is at least one of the most amusing and animating amongst even the condensed publications that for a considerable period have been submitted to our perusal and judgment, and we can confidently recommend it to our readers.”
Chambers’s Edinburgh Journal. Two Notices, Four Columns.
“Of all the works yet published on the subject of the aboriginal inhabitants of North America, no one, it seems to us, can be compared in point of accuracy and extent of research with that of Mr. Catlin. In the course of eight years he traversed North America almost from end to end, saw and mixed with forty-eight Indian tribes, composing a large portion of the two millions of red people yet in existence, examined personally into all their peculiarities, and, finally, accumulated a noble gallery of portraits, and a rich museum of curiosities, calculated to form at once a lasting monument to himself and an invaluable record of Indian persons, manners, and habiliments.