Lot 172D email save

RAMSAY, David. The History of the American Revolu

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Philadelphia: R. Aitken & Son, 1789. 2 volumes, 8vo (205 x 125 mm). Contemporary speckled calf, spines ruled in gilt, morocco lettering pieces. Condition: minor foxing, minor ink staining in the rear of volume one; minor wear, worming along the lower portion of the rear joint of volume two, minor split along the top of the front joint of volume two. Overall, an attractive set. first edition of one of the earliest american histories of the revolution. Ramsay (1749-1815) born in Lancaster, studied medicine at the University of Pennsylvania before settling in Charleston South Carolina to practice. During the war he served as a representative of that state to the Continental Congress. In 1785 he published his first work on the Revolution, The History of the Revolution of South Carolina. Four years later he published this general history of the war. Published shortly after the conclusion of the conflict during a time when America still sought to establish its own identity, "Ramsay's History of the American Revolution reflected the combination of anxiety and optimism that defined nationalistic sentiments in the 1780s" (Messer). Ramsay's History has become an increasingly difficult set to find in its contemporary binding and in good condition. Howes R35; Messer, "From a Revolutionary History to a History of Revolution: David Ramsay and the American Revolution" in Journal of the Early Republic vol. 22, no. 2 (2002); Sabin 67687.

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