The Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition: A Bibliography and Essays (review)

Lewis & Clark College's bibliography of the literature of the Lewis and Clark expedition is a book lover's dream: virtually all of the publications relating to the expedition (reviewers have noted the absence of a few) have been collected and annotated along with a series of authoritative essays by historian Stephen Dow Beckham. A professor of western American history at the college, Beckham discusses such topics as the books that the explorers took with them; early publications related to the expedition, both apocryphal and authentic; the belated publication of the expedition's journals; and the numerous scholarly publications, centennial publications, and children's literature. Issued as a salute to the bicentennial celebration as well as to the college's collecting efforts, The Literature of the Lewis and Clark Expedition is a good read, placing the expedition and its documentation firmly within its cultural context of the Enlightenment and the new American nation.

American literature was in its infancy, and a book such as Patrick Gass's Journal of the Voyages & Travels of a Corps of Discovery (a term that Gass first used with regard to the expedition) that sold well enough to go through several editions within a few years of its 1807 publication was denounced in the more sophisticated London reviews: "All he says, we have no doubt, is strictly true: at least, if intolerable dullness be a symptom of truth in narration." Mathew Carey's 1810 edition (and subsequent printings) added illustrations from an unknown source that supplemented the text's naive charm but did not bolster its scientific credentials.

The expedition's valuable data were in the care of Meriwether Lewis, who apparently had one of the worst cases of writer's block in the young nation's history; his tragic death on the Natchez Trace in 1809 ended any hopes that he would produce the definitive account of the expedition. This chore fell to the young Nicholas Biddle, who, at the request of William Clark and the encouragement of the would-be publisher, the firm of C. and A. Conrad of Philadelphia, undertook to produce a work of two parts: a narrative of the expedition and a description of the scientific discoveries. By the time Biddle had completed his draft, Conrad had gone bankrupt. Needing to get back to his own career, Biddle employed the young writer and editor Paul Allen to finish the project for a sum of $500. Allen finally contracted with the firm of Bradford and Inskeep to be the publisher, and the two-volume work appeared in 1814. With such an inauspicious and delayed debut one might have predicted a short run for the relatively expensive set, but with information from the explorations of what historian William H. Goetzmann has termed the Second Great Age of Discovery the volumes found publishers, apparently interested readers, and were also published in England, The Netherlands, and Germany. Historian Gary Moulton has recently added the crowning touch with his thirteen-volume annotated edition of the journals as well as associated materials (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001).

While the Aubrey R. Watzek Library at Lewis & Clark College does not hold all the publications related to the Corps of Discovery, it does have one of the finest collections of such material, including some apparently unique items (such as the broadside titled the National Intelligencer Extraordinary, dated December 2, 1806, announcing the return of the expedition). This beautiful and well-printed volume is a fitting tribute to those who helped build the collection and the scholars who produced it as well as aficionados of the expedition, who will delight in its abundant details.