John Marshall, Henri L. Duhamel du Monceau

First edition of Marshall's The Life of George Washington.

• Sold as a set of 6.
• John Marshall (American).
• Philadelphia: C. P. Wayne, 1804, 1805, 1807.
• Engraved frontispiece and maps.
• Stamp of the Mercantile Library Association to title page of atlas.
• Bound in modern quarter calf, marbled boards, red goatskin spine labels, sixth volume with original paper label retained, and marbled edges. 

John Marshall started work on this epic biography — the first to be written about any US president — soon after he was appointed to the United States Supreme Court, and partly at the urging of his colleague Bushrod Washington, George's nephew. Bushrod gave Marshall access to George Washington's papers and correspondence, lending the work an authority that allows it "still to pass current for solid coin," in historian William A. Foran's words (52). Indeed, it remains a key work in the construction of the US identity based on one of the nation's greatest heroes.

Copies of this work are often seen lacking the atlas volume, which also contains a list of the supporters of this publication organized by state. An elegant set.