Why it matters

Umfreville spent a decade with the Hudson's Bay Company, was at York Factory when La Pérouse took it in 1782, and then traded inland for the North West Company, and his book is one of the earliest published insider attacks on HBC administration and trade policy. It also carries first-hand material on inland posts and Indigenous peoples, including a comparative specimen vocabulary of Indigenous languages and a journal of an overland journey from Montreal to New York, which is why it sits in Sabin, Howes, Streeter, Arctic Bibliography and TPL.

Why we're looking

This is a complete first edition retaining the half-title, with plate and both folding tables, in a clamshell box from an ABAA/ILAB Americana dealer — but it is not a bargain: the only comparable first edition we found, the Maggs Bros. copy at US$4,092.72, is roughly US$160-285 cheaper than this ask, though that copy lacks the half-title and is in later half-calf. So the interest here is the copy's completeness and the fact that only two first editions appear to be on the open market at once, not relative price. A Beautiful One should always be complete.

Watch out for

The seller's own description is the main flag: the front hinge is cracked and nearly separated and the rear hinge slightly cracked, so this 19th-century calf binding will likely need professional repair or rebacking — budget for that on top of a four-figure ask. The pagination hiatus is not a defect: the Peel bibliography record notes pages 129-132 are omitted in pagination with the text continuous, matching the seller's statement. Peel's collation line records folding tables but does not mention an engraved plate, so it is worth asking the seller directly about the plate's presence, placement and condition, which the listing does not describe beyond noting it.