CHASTELLUX (François-Jean de).Voyages... dans l'Amérique septentrionale Dans les années 1780, 1781 & 1782. Paris: Prault, 1786. - 2 volumes in-8, 195 x 120 : 8, 390 pp, (1 blank f.), 1 map ; (2 ff.), 362 pp, (1 f.), 1 map, 3 plates. Brown half-basin, smooth spine decorated with a repeated gilt iron representing a bonnet on a pike, decorated with a flower, yellow edges (period binding).Second official edition, bringing together the complete account of the travels of the Marquis de Chastellux (1734-1788), military officer, literary scholar and economist, member of the Académie française. His work, the fruit of careful observation of the nascent United States, had initially circulated in two forms: a partial and private edition intended for the author in 1781, followed by a pirate edition in 1785. It was not until 1786 that the text was officially published in its entirety, providing the public with an authentic and definitive version of this account of eighteenth-century America (Sabin, vol. III, no. 12227). "Chastellux's account is highly varied, travelling in all seasons around the battlefields of the Revolutionary War as it drew to a close, accompanied by noble French lords or American generals; he describes landscapes barely marked by the axe, Indians already proletarianised near the settlers' villages - at least in the north-eastern states he visited - rivers frozen over and crossed by sledge, isolated inns with often mediocre meals. He observed the United States as a work in progress, marked by war, a society on the move where children and women were already freer than in Europe. He frequently met the founding fathers: G. Washington, whose greatness and simplicity he admired, Madison, whose culture he praised, Jefferson in his native Virginia; he was a mild critic of La Fayette. What is striking about these accounts [...] is their warmth for the Americans, for their national struggle, for the values they defend" (Jacques Portes, Revue française d'Histoire d'Outre-Mer, vol. 69, 1982, p. 179). The edition is illustrated with 2 maps and 3 fold-out plates. A very fine copy, very well preserved. Old label of a private library at the top of the spines.