Books in the Cambridge Library Collection - North American History series

Several years after his return from the Caribbean island of Nevis, the English clergyman William Smith wrote a series of letters to Charles Mason, the Woodwardian Professor of Fossils at Cambridge. Published in 1745, they discuss the island's flora and fauna as well as Smith's various other interests, including cryptography.

This work by Randolph B. Marcy (1812-87) is reissued here in the 1863 edition, edited with notes by the British explorer Richard Burton. Based on Marcy's own experiences, it covers the practical steps necessary to enable the emigrant to the American west to be self-reliant and to survive.

This early study of Native American culture was first published in 1775. James Adair (fl.1735-75), a trader who worked for many years among the Catawba, Cherokee, Muscogee, Chickasaw and Choctaw, presents extensive ethnographic information on these peoples, along with accounts of his activity in trading, politics and warfare.

Howard Stansbury (1806-63) was a major in the United States Army Corps of Topographical Engineers. This book, published in 1852, is his illustrated account of a two-year scientific and surveying expedition he led to Salt Lake City. He also describes his favourable impressions of the Mormons he encountered there.

Here reissued in its 1819 second edition, this 1818 book by the political reformer William Cobbett (1763-1835) describes a year he spent farming on Long Island after fleeing England. Analysing the climate, soil, crops and economics, Cobbett disputes claims that the mid-West is an ideal destination for British emigrants.

Published before the outcome of the conflict was known, this account of the American Revolution by the Abbe Raynal (1713-69) was first published in English in 1781. It is taken from the last volume of his influential Philosophy and Political History of the East and West Indies.

George Washington (1732-1799) was the first president of the United States, having led the Continental army to victory against the British during the American War of Independence. This 1807 biography (here reissued in the 1858 Boston edition) documents his military career and campaigns, and his terms as president.

First published in 1821, just six years after he had witnessed the British campaigns in Washington and New Orleans, Gleig's chronicle provides a glimpse of the impressions, sentiments and attitudes fostered by those who fought some of the most influential battles in British and American history.