Allen, Ethan | One of the rarest Revolutionary War narratives

Allen, Ethan

A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen’s Captivity, from the Time of his Being Taken by the British, near Montreal, on the 25th day of September, in the Year 1775, to the Time of his Exchange, on the 6th day of May, 1778: Containing his Voyages and Travels … Interspersed with Some Political Observations. Written by Himself, and now Published for the Information of the Curious in all Nations. Phladelphia: Printed, Boston: Re-printed by Draper and Folsom, [1779]

8vo in half-sheets (200 x 128 mm, uncut). Some soiling and staining throughout, a number of leaves with marginal chips, tears, and repairs, costing the second N in "Introduction" at the head of the title-page verso and page numbers and several words for top corners of final leaf (E4) neatly supplied in facsimile. Retrospective half brown morocco over marbled boards, spine gilt in compartments with red morocco spine label.

The extraordinarily rare second edition of Ethan Allen's best-selling Narrative; this is evidently the only copy to appear at auction in more than a century.

Ethan Allen was the leader of the Green Mountain Boys, who led a movement to nullify New York's authority over the region. But after Lexington and Concord, Allen led his makeshift militia in a surprise attack on Fort Ticonderoga, taking control of Lake Champlain and gaining admittance of the Green Mountain Regiment to the Continental Army. "Allen joined General Richard Montgomery's staff as a recruiter, enlisting Indians and Québecois to join the forces invading Canada. In a daring effort to capture a weakly defended Montreal with an equally small force of New Englanders and Québecois, Allen was taken prisoner by the British. Over the next two years he suffered a brutal captivity in British prisons, aboard prison ships, and in the New York City jail. Thanks to the efforts of his family, Allen's cruel treatment at the hands of the British became a cause célèbre. Finally exchanged in May 1778 for Lieutenant Colonel Archibald Campbell, Allen wrote a narrative of his captivity that lacerated the British as vindictive monsters [the subtitle of his memoir references "the Destruction of the Prisoners at New York, by General Sir William Howe"] while calling on Americans to forsake any thought of compromise. Allen's Narrative … was an enormous success, going through eight editions in two years, and is rated second among best-selling books of the revolutionary period after Thomas Paine's Common Sense" (Michael Bellesiles in American National Biography).

The first edition, printed the same year by Robert Bell in Philadelphia, is known only by copies at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Massachusetts Historical Society. While the present second edition is located in ten institutions, this is the only copy found in the auction records for more than a century, last appearing in the rooms in 1909. A third edition was published by William Mentz in Philadelphia, also in 1779, and that same year Ezekiel Russell began a serialization of the Narrative in Russell’s American Almanack, for the Year of our Redemption, 1780, but never completed it.

PROVENANCE

"J Green jnr." (?; contemporary signature dated 1780 on title-page) — Clarence H. Clark (Henkels, 30 November 1909, lot 4)

REFERENCE

Celebration of My Country 81; ESTC W13736; Evans 16181; Howes A136; Revolutionary Hundred 55; Sabin 793