TRAVELS IN NORTH AMERICA IN THE YEARS 1827 AND 1828 (TWO VOLUMES, COMPLETE)

Philadelphia, PA: Carey, Lea & Carey, 1829. First U.S. Edition. Hardcover. Good Minus. Matching two volume set: Octavo, 8.2 in. x 4.7 in., Volume I: pp. 322; Volume II: pp. 339. Contemporary publishers blue boards rebacked with gray-tan paper spine with no title. Untrimmed fore and bottom edges. Soiling to well-worn boards. Edges showing. Light, speckled foxing to pages, but text clearly legible. Laid in (both volumes): top two inches of original paper spine label attached to a piece of paper.
Volume I: Front free endpaper partially detached and top 1/2 in. has been cut off. Previous owner's name in pencil to front flyleaf.
Volume II: Front free endpaper detached but present. Open tear (2 in. x 3 in. to corner of front flyleaf. Tidelines front endpapers and last six leaves plus rear endpapers. Basil Hall (born Dec. 31, 1788, Dunglass, Haddingtonshire, Scot.—died Sept. 11, 1844, Gosport, Hampshire, Eng.) British naval officer and traveler remembered for noteworthy accounts of his visits to the Orient, Latin America, and the United States. The son of geologist Sir James Hall, the younger Hall joined the navy in 1802. In 1815 he commanded the escort ship that accompanied William Pitt Amherst (Earl Amherst), the English ambassador to China. After leaving the navy he went to the United States, and upon returning to England he published a work attacked by the American press, Travels in North America in the Years 1827 and 1828, 3 vol. (1829).