The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, Volume 1 (of 3) / To Headwaters of the Mississippi River Through Louisiana Territory, and in New Spain, During the Years 1805-6-7. - Zebulon Montgomery Pike

Map, the First Part of Pike's Chart of Louisiana, folding, about 17½ × 17½ inches, called Plate I.

Map, the Second Part of Pike's Chart of Louisiana, folding, about 17 × 15½ inches, called Plate II.

Map, Internal Provinces of New Spain, about 18¼ × 17¾ inches.

Map, Sketch of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, about 15⅝ × 12⅞ inches.

Total pages 8 + 278 + 10 + 4 + 66 + 54 + 88 = 508, some not paginated, a few blank; 5 sets of pagination. Inserts 1 portrait, 3 folding tables, 6 maps (5 folding) = 10. Folders all may be found in a separate vol. in some copies.

It has been said, "The pen is mightier than the sword." Pike's pen proved mightier than his sword, and pistols too, in putting bookmaking to confusion and editors to despair. It would be hard to find a match for the disorder in which Pike's materials were set forth in print, especially in the several Appendixes: Even the patient printer would not let it go without published apology. No editor has hitherto been found expert or rash enough to reproduce anything like the original arrangement of the "Parts," "Appendixes" with their numerous pieces, folding "Tables," etc. The English editor, who first undertook to bring something like cosmos out of this chaos, created a new book by weaving as much as he could of the matter of the Appendixes into the main text, or into footnotes thereto, thereby greatly reducing the bulk of the appendicial texts. But these contained documents which proved refractory to such treatment; the plan could not be fully carried out, for there was a residuum which still called for an Appendix. In fact, the real bulk of Pike's cargo is in these Appendixes; his Itineraries—the only portions of his book which were printed in large type, as main text—being less important, if not less interesting, than the rest of the freight. In approaching my own editorial labors, my intention was to adhere as closely as possible to the arrangement of the original. This I flatter myself I have succeeded in doing, with a few important exceptions to which attention is pointedly directed in my notes. These transpositions, with the introduction of chapter-heads, and co-ordination of all of the original book in uniform typography, have probably effected the required result.

In 1811 Pike's work was also published, from another MS. copy, with many modifications, in a handsome quarto edition, as follows:

One vol., 4to. Half-title, 1 leaf, verso blank; title, 1 leaf, verso blank; advertisement, dated Jan. 28th, 1811, and signed Thomas Rees, pp. v-ix; Congressional matters taken from the App. to Part III. of the orig. ed., pp. xi-xviii; contents, pp. xix, xx; main text, pp. 1-390; Appendix, pp. 391-436; colophon, J. G. Barnard, Printer, Skinner-street, London. The copy examined has only two maps—the Mississippi, reduced to 4to page size; Louisiana and New Mexico, prepared by putting together two of Pike's orig. maps and reducing the result to 10⅛; × 13⅞ inches. Folding tables reset to page size.

This is the standard English edition, prepared under the careful and able editorship of Dr. Thomas Rees, from a manuscript copy transmitted to England at the time that the original manuscript went to press in America. This edition, and not the American of 1810, is the basis of the French and Dutch versions, and is also the one which was textually reprinted as the Denver edition of 1889. Dr. Rees made Pike a much better book than the author made for himself. The very great differences from the American original, due to the English editor's literary skill, are modestly set forth in the latter's Advertisement. It appears from this that the MS. transmitted to England "was divided into six parts, comprising the three journals which follow, and the observations pertaining to each in a separate portion." As the appendicial matters were received "in the desultory manner in which they were originally composed, the editor judged it for the advantage of the work to restore them, as nearly as he possibly could, in distinct paragraphs, to the places they had first occupied in the journal, thus rendering it unnecessary to lead the reader a second time over the same ground." In other words, Dr. Rees picked the helter-skelter Appendixes to pieces, and wove most of their contents into the main text, as already said. The accounts of the Indians on the Upper Mississippi, and the Observations on New Spain, he "preserved in their original state. The Notes and Appendixes, with some variation of arrangement, have been printed after the manuscripts, but a few articles have been omitted, as containing only repetitions of what had already appeared in the body of the work. With respect to the language and style of the Author, the Editor felt he had a much more delicate task to perform than in the disposal of the materials." He therefore preserved Pike's language in substance, but corrected his grammar freely. Dr. Rees' avowal of the trouble he had with proper names of persons and places will surprise no one who reads the present edition and sees with what extraordinary perversions of Indian, French, and Spanish names both Dr. Rees and myself had to contend. Dr. Rees speaks also of the "ignorant and careless transcriber" of the copy which reached him, and observes further: "It is mortifying to find that in America, where the Author was accessible, and might readily have elucidated any accidental obscurities in his manuscript, the work has been printed in very nearly as incorrect a state as it appeared in the present editor's copy. The sheets of the American Edition reached here some time after his own had been in the printer's hands, but its numerous errors, discreditable certainly to the American press, left him little to regret that they had not arrived at an earlier period." For the rest, Dr. Rees remarks that he furnished "some cursory notes, which are distinguished by the letter E," and adds: "In the account of New Spain he has subjoined the population of several places from Humboldt's recent 'Essai Politique,' in order to furnish the reader with the means of instant comparison. It is pleasing to observe how nearly these statements agree in the most material instances; and the circumstance affords no slight evidence of the general accuracy of Major Pike's information." He is charitable enough to refrain from adding what else this circumstance evidences. Dr. Rees' further introduction to his main text consists of the Congressional papers, which in the orig. ed. form a part of the App. to Pt. 3, and which are given this prominence, apparently, to authenticate the whole work in the eyes of the English public by these officialities. In the copy of the Rees edition which I have handled I find but two maps, reduced as above said.