History of the Expedition under the command of Lewis and Clark. Including a Diligent Study of the Original Manuscript Journals and Field Notebooks of the Explorers.

First Coues edition, limited (no. 896 of 1000). Octavo (9 5/16" x 6", 237mm x 152mm). Vol. I: half-title, i-cxxxii, 1-352. With a lithographed portrait frontispiece and two facsimile letters. Vol. II: i-vi (incl. half-title), 353-820. With a lithographed portrait frontispiece. Vol. III: i-vi (incl. half-title), 821-1298. Vol. IV: i-vi (incl. half-title), 1299-1364. With five plates and two folding charts, and two (of three; lacking the modern map) loose folding maps in the pocket. Bound in the publisher's green cloth with gilt spines. Fore- and bottom edges untrimmed. Some wear to the extremities, and splits to the heads and tails; with a closed tear to the head of vol. I. Voll. I, III and IV partly decased. Front joint of vol. II split. Title-page of vol. I laid in. Meriwether Lewis (1774-1809) and William Clark (1770-1838), both captains in the army (Clark in the Illinois militia; Lewis was Thomas Jefferson's private secretary), were commissioned by Jefferson to co-command the Corps of Discovery, a unit whose mission was the exploration of the newly purchased Louisiana Territory, with an ultimate view to reaching to the Pacific. In addition to their military corps, they were accompanied by civilians including Sacajawea, who served as an interpreter more often than as a guide, but also, crucially, "a token of peace" as "a woman with a party of men." Elliot Coues (1842-1899), himself a surgeon in the army and a natural historian, produced the "most scholarly" (Howes) of all editions of Lewis and Clark's accounts, drawn from the autograph manuscripts themselves. After this edition he would go on to produce scholarly editions of other American pioneers: Zebulon Pike, Alexander Henry et al.…