Thomas Jefferson. NOTES ON THE STATE OF VIRGINIA. WITH AN APPENDIX. Boston: Printed by David Carlisle, For Thomas & Andrews, et al., 1801. Stated Eighth American edition. Full leather, re-backed, with gilt ruling and gilt-titled red morocco label on the spine. 8vo; 364pp. with appendix. With engraved portrait frontispiece, folding table, numerous tables, several illustrations, and advertisement page. Howes J78.

8 1/4 x 5 1/2 in.

Jefferson's Notes offers significant information about Virginia, as well as his own ideas and ideals, with a discussion of everything from natural history to Jefferson's thoughts on religion. Written in 1781, it was first published in Paris in 1785, and numerous editions followed in London and the United States. Nevertheless, "...the Founding Father wrote only one full-length book, Notes on the State of Virginia, a book he neither originally intended to write, nor when completed, to publish widely or even under his own name" (https://www.monticello.org/research-education/thomas-jefferson-encyclopedia/notes-state-virginia/).

A well-bound volume; boards lightly scuffed with heavily rubbed corners, edgewear, lower board with several chips, small worm trail, cracking, and bent corner, spine label chipped; small stain at fore-edge, writing on front paste-down and frontispiece recto (with some bleed-through to portrait), frontispiece with one tear and damp staining, title page with loss at corner just reaching the "S" in "NOTES"; lacking a front and rear free endpaper, and unfortunately lacking most of folding map; table browned with foxing, frayed edge, light damp staining at edges, and tears including one larger 3-in. tear; pages with toning and foxing (with spotting sometimes quite heavy), and occasional offsetting and edge chipping/fraying; frequent damp staining at margins, one leaf with a tiny hole, several pages mis-numbered.