Jeffries, John, fl. 1790 A Narrative of the Two Aerial Voyages of Doctor Jeffries... (George Washington's copy)
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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC04936 Author/Creator: Jeffries, John, fl. 1790 Place Written: London, England Type: Book signed Date: 1786 Pagination: 62 p. : Height: 26.8 cm, Width: 22 cm Order a Copy
"A narrative of the two aerial voyages of Doctor Jeffries with Mons. Blanchard; with meterological observations and remarks...." Printed for the author. Small folio format, signed on the titlepage by George Washington. Handsome tree-calf binding. With handsome frontispiece engraving of Jeffries. Jeffries had been a Loyalist who went to England where he pursued research on air, its properties and balloons. After this flight, he went to Paris, dined with Franklin and met John Paul Jones. He returned to Boston in 1790. In 1794, Blanchard came to America and in Philadelphia, with Washington's blessing, made the first balloon ascent in America. There are two corrections in an unknown contemporary hand on the engraved endpiece on page 60, identification of Jeffries, has been changed from "Britanicus" to "Americanus" in the Latin and "Anglais" to "Americain" in the French. Athenaeum Catalog (1897) p. 550 (item 11 in the GW's estate inventory).
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