Rare book set: The History of the Rise, Progress, and Establishment, of the Independence of the United States of America: including an Account of the Late War; and of the Thirteen Colonies, from their origin to that period, Vols. I-IV, by William Gordon. London: printed for the author and sold by Charles Dilly, 1788. Hardcovers, 5.75 x 9, 2032 pages. Six of the map plates have been removed, but Plate VII (Charleston/Fort Moultrie), Plate VIII (Virginia), and Plate IX (Yorktown) remain in place in Vols. III and IV. The first volume contains an interesting list of subscribers, including John Adams, Marquis de Lafayette, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Samuel Adams, and many other notable figures of the era. Book condition: G+/None, with heavy wear to spines and edges including some losses to spine paper and title labels, various marginal tears and losses, some creasing to edges, and the bookplate of Joel Davis Madden, Jr., affixed inside each volume; the interior pages are generally clean and tightly bound.
William Gordon was a dissenting minister in England whose political sympathies caused him to travel to America in 1770, where he became pastor of a church at Roxbury, near Boston. There he met many of the leading patriots and observed the early activities of the Revolution firsthand. His important, four-volume work on the establishment of American independence was recognized by bibliographer Wright Howes as the 'first full-scale history of this war by an American; to its preparation Jefferson contributed some aid.' Joseph Sabin offered similar praise for the author: 'Gordon is deservedly reckoned as the most impartial and reliable of the numerous historians of the American Revolution.' In addition to transcripts of original papers relating to the Revolution, a highlight of the work are its folding maps, engraved by T. Conger, three of which are retained here—including the especially desirable battle plans of Fort Moultrie and Yorktown.
Joel Davis Madden, Jr., left Princeton University in 1905 and moved west to make his fortune in the railroad industry. He went on to become an executive with the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and died suddenly in 1928 at the age of 41. His book collection, offered by his granddaughter, has not been publicly offered or privately sold in a century.
