3 vol., third octavo edition, 120 hand-coloured lithographed plates by J.T. Bowen, most after Charles Bird King, original brown blind-tooled morocco, spines lettered in gilt, g.e., [Howes M129; Sabin: 43411 (1854-56 edition with 221 plates)], large 8vo, Philadelphia, T.K. & P.G. Collins for D. Rice & A. N. Hart, 1855. Renowned for its faithful portraits of Native Americans, based on paintings by the artist Charles Bird King, who was employed by the War Department to paint the Indian delegates visiting Washington D.C., forming the basis of the War Department's Indian Gallery. Most of King's original paintings were subsequently destroyed in a fire at the Smithsonian, and their appearance in McKenney and Hall's magnificent work is thus the only record of the likenesses of many of the most prominent Indian leaders of the nineteenth century.