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RILEY, James.
Loss of the American brig Commerce,
wrecked on the western coast of Africa, in the month of August, 1815, with an account of Tombuctoo, and of the hitherto undiscovered great city of Wassanah.
First UK edition, first published in America in the same year. Riley was a native of Middletown, Connecticut, and first went to see as a cabin-boy, "but by 1815 was master and part-owner of the brig Commerce." (Howgego) The ship was wrecked near Cape Bojador, Morocco, and Riley and his crew captured and enslaved. "Naked and on foot, Riley and his sailors were taken on a long and agonizing march across the desert … living only on camel's urine and roast snails." Eventually he managed to persuade a Moroccan merchant to redeem them against a promise that his expenses would be made good as soon as contact could be with Europeans on the coast. William Willshire, a British resident at Mogador, came to their assistance and gave them an opportunity to recover from their ordeal, enabling them to proceed to Tangier where James Simpson, the American consul, arranged for their repatriation. "On his return to America, Riley was received with great interest and taken to Washington where he was interviewed by Secretary of State James Monroe … As a result Riley was authorized to ransom any other American sailors who had suffered a similar fate. Riley's narrative was published in 1817 … [it] sold over a million copies in Riley's lifetime and even left a lasting impression on Abraham Lincoln." Lincoln included it alongside the Bible, Pilgrim's Progress, Franklin's Autobiography, Aesop's Fables, and Weems's Life of Washington, in a list of the most influential books of his early life, identifying the clear anti-slavery message of Riley's account.
Quarto (275 × 211 mm) contemporary half calf on marbled boards, rebacked. Folding map frontispiece. Bookplate of H. Y. Satterlee, Episcopal Bishop of Washington to the front pastedown. Somewhat worn, boards scuffed, rebacked in linen, leather label, paste-action browning of the endpapers, light browning and some marginal soiling to the text-block, map torn, without loss, and repaired verso.
