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William Reese Company - Americana

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A VOYAGE TO THE NORTH PACIFIC AND A JOURNEY THROUGH SIBERIA MORE THAN HALF A CENTURY AGO

D'Wolf, John iv,147pp. Original printed tan wrappers. Wrappers a bit stained and foxed, splitting along the lower joint of the front wrapper. Quite clean and fresh internally. Very good. In a cloth clamshell case, spine gilt. The Thomas W. Streeter-William S. Reese copy. This is a presentation copy, inscribed on the titlepage: "To the Dorchester Antiquarian Society with the regard of John D'Wolf." This copy has the bookplates of the Dorchester Antiquarian Society and Thomas W. Streeter on the verso of the front wrapper, and of William S. Reese on the interior of the clamshell case. According to Sabin, only one hundred copies of this book were printed. A very rare Pacific voyage account by an uncle of Herman Melville. As a young man, in 1805, Captain D'Wolf sailed the Bristol brig, Juno, via Cape Horn to Sitka, sold her to the Russian governor there and returned with Langsdorff via Siberia. It was on the newly acquired Juno that Rezanov sailed to San Francisco in early March 1806 to buy supplies for the Russian settlers. "One of the rarest of Pacific voyages.After staying with Governor Alexander Baranov, of the Russian American Company at New Archangel [Sitka], D'Wolf, an uncle of Herman Melville and mentioned by him in MOBY DICK and REDBURN, accepted Baranov's [i.e., Rezanov's] invitation to accompany him across Siberia to St. Petersburg, with Baron Georg von Langsdorff. In his narrative, D'Wolf expresses the opinion that he was the first American to make the journey" - Hill. "From our point of view it is fortunate that D'Wolf published this account as it gives many interesting and important details regarding a difficult period in the life of the Russians in Alaska (sickness, near starvation, constant dangers from the Koloshes, etc.).This work by D'Wolf is a highly desirable - and very rare - addition to the original contemporary source material on Alaska, and on Siberia as well. D'Wolf's background and character are such that we can give full credence to his remarks and observations" - Lada-Mocarski. D'Wolf's experiences certainly had a major impact on his nephew, Herman Melville, who grew up hearing stories of D'Wolf's Pacific voyages. Melville would use D'Wolf's experiences as an inspiration, writing in Chapter 45 of Moby Dick that his uncle, "who, after a long life of unusual adventures as a sea captain, this day resides in the village of Dorchester near Boston." Melville also mentions D'Wolf in Redburn. This is among the rarest of ancillary Melville narratives. This must have been one of the last books that Thomas W. Streeter acquired for his famed collection, bought by him from Goodspeed's in early 1965 for $300. Streeter died on June 12, 1965 and this book appeared in the sixteenth session of his sale, on April 22, 1969. It was acquired by H.P. Kraus for $500; William S. Reese acquired this copy for his Melville collection in 2008. Two other copies have appeared at auction since this Thomas W. Streeter copy: the Frank S. Streeter copy sold for $14,400 in 2007, and the Martin Greene copy (sold to him by this firm and with four plates and a photograph of the author mounted in) sold for $37,500 in 2017. HILL 527. SABIN 19883. LADA-MOCARSKI 148. HOWES D310, "c." STREETER SALE 3526 (this copy). WICKERSHAM 6666. NERHOOD 134.
  • $30,000
  • $30,000
book (2)

ATLAS OF THE CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO FROM ACTUAL SURVEYS AND OFFICIAL RECORDS

Humphreys, William P., [compiler and editor] 215pp., with sixty-four engraved tinted plat maps, including forty-eight double-page maps (one of which is folding). Plus an extra folding map fragment pasted to inside of front board (see below). Folio. Contemporary half calf and cloth boards, vellum corners, spine gilt, front board embossed with monogram (see below). Binding rubbed with leather scuffed and somewhat worn. Occasional light soiling to the maps. "Map of the City and County of San Francisco" and plat no. 44 - backed with canvas, each with small canvas tab at fore edge. Two-inch closed tear to outer edge of page 6, outer edge of page 7 chipped affecting map border, since repaired. Closed horizontal tear running almost whole length of page 150, repaired. Title of plat no. 34 corrected. Slightly later pencil annotations to many maps. Ink stamps to titlepage and to pages 6, 7, and 11. Very good. A rare and important 19th-century atlas of San Francisco, detailing every block of the city, with government lands in color. The present copy has an interesting provenance and bears the embossed monogram of Adolph Sutro on the front board as well his stamp on two of the maps. A noted collector, Sutro (1830-98) was a German-American engineer who made his fortune from the Comstock Lode, specifically in building a long tunnel to improve access to the mines. Later he invested heavily in San Francisco real estate, ultimately owning one-twelfth of the property in the city, and built an oceanfront mansion. Sutro served two years as mayor of San Francisco, and his book collection, which grew to some 250,000 volumes, became the basis of the Sutro Library. In their landmark Catalogue 50, John Howell-Books, offered another copy of this same atlas, also having belonged to Adolph Sutro. Given Sutro's involvement in real estate, and his prolific book collecting, it is not surprising that Sutro would have had more than one copy of this atlas. A few of the maps also bear the ink stamp of San Francisco attorneys E.J. and J.H. Moore. Roughly a quarter of the maps herein are annotated in pencil, with various marginal notes, corrections, updates, and additions. While it is unclear who made them, the annotations seem to date from sometime after 1896, with several annotations making reference to "the New Map of 1896" against which the present maps have clearly been compared. Another annotation cites an 1894 law declaring "Clement St. an open street from 33d to 48th." Among the various additions are annotations identifying the locations of the German Hospital, built in 1904 at the corner of 14th and Noe, and the Catholic Orphan Asylum. Several maps feature penciled lines demarcating various boundaries, including those of the San Miguel Line and the Crocker Estate. Interestingly, pasted to the inside of the front board of the present volume is a map entitled "Map of the Berkeley Villa Association Lands Showing the Position of This Property and Its Connection with San Francisco and Oakland." The map is lacking the lower right quadrant, and while no publication information is present, there is a map by the same title and of the same dimensions, attributed to the pioneering African-American lithographer, Grafton Tyler Brown, located at the California State Library. As G.T. Brown's foremost chronicler, Robert Chandler, notes, "Real estate sale maps brought Brown his largest profits, and most of his were of Bay Area locales," particularly of the Oakland and Berkeley subdivisions where Brown lived. The map bears an ink stamp for "Stuart & Lovell, Real Estate and General Agents." A rare atlas, this is only the second - though the first complete - copy we have handled. A central document in the study of San Francisco's urbanization, with the provenance of one of the City's most famous citizens, real estate owners, and book collectors. COWAN, p.553. HOWELL 50:1613 (another copy owned by Sutro). ROCQ 9897. Robert J. Chandler, SAN FRANCISCO LITHOGRAPHER: AFRICAN AMERICAN ARTIST GRAFTON TYLER BROWN (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014), pp.122-23.
  • $6,000
  • $6,000
book (2)

VISCHER’S PICTORIAL OF CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPE, TREES AND FOREST SCENES. GRAND FEATURES OF CALIFORNIA SCENERY, LIFE, TRAFFIC AND CUSTOMS

Vischer, Edward [8],[3 (Concluding Remarks)],[2 (advertisement leaf for his similarly-titled 1867 work)],[3 (table of contents for the first section)],[2 (mounted photographic map of California and "Localization of Subjects" leaf)]pp., plus 169 additional mounted photographs, mostly from drawings executed in pencil and wash, and sectional titlepages. Text pages printed variously in red or purple. Tall quarto. Original richly gilt green morocco by Bartling and Kimball, gilt dentelles, spine gilt with raised bands, a.e.g. Corners bumped and rubbed, wear along joints and spine ends. Early ownership inscription in pencil on front free endpaper (see below). Very clean internally, the photo images clean and fresh. A near fine copy overall, in its original deluxe binding. A singular work of California art and iconography, VISCHER'S PICTORIAL OF CALIFORNIA LANDSCAPE. stands alone in its depiction of the state in the second half of the 19th century. Called by Weber "preeminently the greatest artist in the early history of our state," Vischer created dozens of drawings of California scenes and scenery from on-the-spot observations, and reproduced them in albumen photographs. "The drawings, executed in pencil and wash, cover a wide range of subjects, including a rare commemoration of the brief introduction of camels to California. Of special importance are the drawings of the missions which interested Vischer throughout his life" - Howell. Cowan notes that copies of Vischer's work often vary in the number of plates, as we have also discovered from experience, though it appears that the complete complement for this deluxe edition in gilt green morocco is 170, as here. In this copy, the first section ("Californian Landscape") features sixty photographs split into five sets of twelve, including scenes in forests and mining camps, the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Truckee, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, several California missions (of great interest to Vischer), Donner Lake, the San Bernardino mountains, a few depictions of camels (a military experiment of the 1850s and 60s), and more. This is followed by a section of twenty-seven photographs of trees and forest scenes, including giant Sequoias and redwoods, the Mammoth tree grove, and Cypress trees. Finally is a large and loosely organized section of sixty-eight "miscellaneous views," which include numerous additional works by Vischer, contributions by other artists, and actual photographs which include images of the Japanese Embassy, a large nugget of gold, and the Great Pacific Railroad. Of Vischer's works, AMERICA PICTURED TO THE LIFE states: ".there are no contemporary publications quite comparable to them in their eccentric combination of media; the confusion is compounded by the bewildering array of formats, issues, and reissues the artist ultimately produced." Edward Vischer (1809-78) migrated from Germany to Mexico at the age of nineteen, working for commercial houses, and acting as the supercargo on trading voyages to Pacific ports in the Americas and Asia. Dispatched to California in 1842, he became enamored of the area and returned to San Francisco in 1847, working as a merchant and agent for foreign companies during the Gold Rush. A talented amateur artist, Vischer began to sketch the California scenery he encountered. "In 1861 he visited the Calaveras Big Trees.In 1862 he published a portfolio of a dozen lithographed plates of sketches made on his trip" - Peters. Dissatisfied with the compromises necessitated by the change in medium, and frustrated by the technical and physical setbacks caused by working on stone, he abandoned this method in favor of photographs of his drawings, resulting in the curious mixed-media work at hand. "Although evidently not a photographer, Edward Vischer was one of the first people to foresee the possibilities of photography as a means of reproducing fine art in books" - Palmquist & Kailbourn. This copy bears the early ownership signature of Henry E. Robinson. This is quite possibly Henry E. Robinson (1810-80) California pioneer who arrived in February 1849 aboard the steamer, California, the first steamer to enter the port of San Francisco. He was postmaster in Sacramento later that year, a representative to the California constitutional convention, and a member of the first three legislatures. "Because of his Herculean efforts, this sumptuous publication still remains as an invaluable reference for studying the early iconography of California" - Kurutz. A monumental and unique work of American art and photography, in spite of (or perhaps because of) the idiosyncrasies of its creator. COWAN, p.662. ROCQ 17214. FARQUHAR 5c. CURREY & KRUSKA 380. HOWES V131, "b." GRAFF 4492. STREETER SALE 2930. MARGOLIS, TO DELIGHT THE EYE 8. KURUTZ, CALIFORNIA BOOKS ILLUSTRATED WITH ORIGINAL PHOTOGRAPHS, p.8, item 66. PALMQUIST & KAILBOURN, PIONEER PHOTOGRAPHERS OF THE FAR WEST, pp.571-73. PETERS, CALIFORNIA ON STONE, pp.198-202. WEBER, CALIFORNIA MISSIONS, p.103. EBERSTADT 124:16. HOWELL 50:914. MILES & REESE, AMERICA PICTURED TO THE LIFE 21 (note). PETERS, CALIFORNIA ON STONE, pp.198-202 (ref).
  • $27,500
  • $27,500
book (2)

[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, FROM CENTRAL GOLD RUSH FIGURE AND CALIFORNIA PIONEER JOHANN (JOHN) AUGUSTUS SUTTER TO COMMERCIAL MERCHANTS, SIMMONS HUTCHINSON & CO., INTRODUCING MAJOR LANSFORD HASTINGS AND AUTHORIZING HIM TO PURCHASE FURNITURE FROM THEM ON SUTTER’S ACCOUNT]

Sutter, Johann Augustus [1]p. on a quarto sheet. Old folds and wrinkles. Three small holes in right edge of sheet, not affecting text; mostly-closed tear in upper left edge of sheet, not affecting text. Very good overall. A brief but compelling John A. Sutter letter, uniting Sutter with one of the most famous (and criticized) of western guides, Lansford Hastings. Best known for his EMIGRANTS GUIDE TO OREGON AND CALIFORNIA, first published in 1845, Hastings' guide achieved infamy for being the one used by the ill-fated Donner Party, which inadvisably took Hastings' "cutoff" route to California. Sutter delivered crucial goods and assistance to the stranded Donner Party in the winter of 1846- 47, helping to relieve their suffering. It was not only the tragedy of the Donner Party that united Sutter and Hastings. The two were involved in mutually-beneficial promotion of immigration to California for several years, and when Hastings visited Sutter in 1845, he brought a few copies of his newly-published EMIGRANTS GUIDE. When Sutter decided to build a settlement on a bluff overlooking the Sacramento River, to be called Sutterville, Hastings and fellow California pioneer, John Bidwell, laid out the town and both received a share of the town lots from Sutter. Not long after, Sutter and Hastings partnered in a mercantile business in Coloma, and the two were delegates from Sacramento to the California Constitutional Convention in late 1849. "Captain" John A. Sutter was born Johann Augustus Sutter in 1803 in Baden, Germany, of Swiss parents. Early in life he worked in a printing, publishing, and bookselling firm in Basel, before marrying in 1826 and opening his own dry goods and drapery store. He also served in the Berne militia for a time. When his business failed he emigrated to the United States, arriving in New York in 1834, and then travelled to the German colony at St. Louis. He became involved in the Santa Fe trade (making two journeys to the Southwest himself) before setting out for California (via Hawaii and Alaska), where he arrived in 1839. Sutter ingratiated himself with the various political leaders of California, and was granted by the Mexican government an estate of nearly 50,000 acres at the confluence of the Sacramento and American rivers. His land was meant to be an outpost guarding the frontier of Alta California against incursions by Indians and Russian fur traders. Sutter named the region "Nueva Helvetia" (New Switzerland), later commonly called "New Helvetia," and presided over the region as nearly an absolute ruler. Sutter constructed a strong fort, worked the land with the labor of some one thousand Indians, and began cultivating the region, also building a mill, raising cattle, and offering help to immigrants to the region. From the early 1840s, Sutter had to defend his land against fur traders, hostile Indians, and squatters. Paradoxically, the situation only worsened when Sutter's millwright, James Marshall, discovered gold at Sutter's Mill on January 24, 1848. Soon Sutter's land was overrun by squatters and gold seekers who killed his cattle and used his crops. After California joined the United States in 1850, Sutter served in a variety of state and federal political positions, but he continued to suffer financial setbacks. From 1864 to 1878 he received a monthly $250 stipend from the state, but died destitute in 1880. In this letter to Sacramento commission merchants, Simmons Hutchinston & Co., Sutter writes, in full: "Messrs Simons [i.e. Simmons] Hutchisson [i.e. Hutchinson] & Co, Gentlemen Allow me to introduce to your acquaintance Major Hastings the bearer of this, the Major wish [sic] to get some furniture for a few hundred Dollars worth. Please to let him have it and charge the same to my account. By so doing you will oblige me very much." The letter is signed "J.A. Sutter," with Sutter's characteristic pen flourish below and surrounding his signature. It is dated at San Francisco January 7th, 1850. Sutter (making the common mistake of mis-dating the year at the beginning of a new year) had originally dated the letter 1849, but has corrected the "4" to a "5", and has overwritten the circle in the "9" to emphasize that it is a zero, thus correcting the error of 1849 and making the date 1850. Lansford Hastings (1819-70), an Ohio-born lawyer, first led a westward overland expedition in 1842, to Oregon. He went to California, still under Mexican control, for the first time in 1843, and harbored some ambition to bring it under American control through his own leadership. An early promoter of emigration to California, his propagandistic work played on the hopes and ambitions of emigrants, who were lured by the promise of "as much land as you want" in California. Seeking to deflect emigrants from Oregon to California, he proposed a "cutoff" route, of which he had heard from Fremont but had not travelled himself. The first edition of Hastings' EMIGRANTS GUIDE TO OREGON AND CALIFORNIA was published in 1845, and many emigrant groups followed his route, the Donner Party experiencing the most tragic results. Hastings later served as an agent for Mormon businesses, and took part in California's 1849 Constitutional Convention (at which Sutter was also a delegate). Later, he moved to Arizona, practiced law, and during the Civil War advocated for the Confederacy, eventually looking for a place in Mexico or Brazil where unreconstructed southerners could settle. At the time Sutter wrote this letter, Hastings was involved with Sam Brannan in planning a Mormon colony on the shores of Suisun Bay. The furniture he was seeking to acquire from Simmons & Hutchinson was almost certainly for the adobe home Hastings was building in Solano County, which still stands today and is one of the oldest buildings in the county. Simmons, Hutchinson & Company was a California firm involved in a variety of ventures early in the Gold Rush, including banking, mercantile commissions, real estate, and steamboat transportation on th
  • $9,500
  • $9,500
book (2)

A LETTER FROM ROME, SHEWING AN EXACT CONFORMITY BETWEEN POPERY AND PAGANISM.BY CONYERS MIDDLETON.LONDON M,DCC,XLI

[Townsend, General Edward Davis (artist and calligrapher)]: Middleton, Conyers [6],244pp. plus blanks and plates. Original illustrated manuscript, executed on rectos and versos of lined octavo paper stock in black, red, and brown inks. Bound in 19th- century beveled calf, raised bands, decorations in blind, spine lettered in gilt. Decorated endsheets, with binder's ticket of "J. Tretler, Binder. Washington City." Binding rubbed, small shelf-label removal mark, bookplate (properly deaccessioned from a theological institution). Very good, the manuscript in fine state. A remarkable artifact, being an illustrated manuscript transcription of Middleton's work, executed as a diversion by then Captain Edward D. Townsend while stationed in San Francisco with the United States Army's Division of the Pacific, under the command of General Ethan A. Hitchcock. A 2 1/4-page Preface by Townsend, signed and dated by him at the conclusion in San Francisco outlines the origin and intent of the undertaking, indicating that he was loaned an 18th-century printed edition of the book by General Hitchcock in the course of their casual discussions about religion, and he made the elegant transcription so that he might return the original, retain a copy, and produce "a memento of many pleasant hours in San Francisco." The manuscript is illustrated with an elaborate pictorial extra-title, and eight illustrations in the body of the work, HORS TEXTE, executed with considerable skill in ink and pencil, chiefly of religious subjects. However, one drawing might easily be considered a scene in the western mountains. Edward Davis Townsend (1817-93), an 1837 West Point graduate, had an active and distinguished military career, including service in the Florida War, the Cherokee Removal, and along the Canadian border 1838- 41. He transferred to the Adjutant General service in 1846, and was assigned to California from 1851-56. During his eventual assignment to Washington, he was Adjutant General to General Winfield Scott, and during the course of the Civil War, filled many senior positions (including acting Secretary of War), and eventually was promoted to the rank of Major General. He was in charge of the Honor Guard for Lincoln's burial, and oversaw the official collection of the war records. As this manuscript attests, Townsend was a deeply religious man, and among his later publications is CATECHISM OF THE BIBLE. (New York: Episcopal Sunday School Union, 1859). His ANECDOTES OF THE CIVIL WAR. appeared in 1883, and in 1970 the Ward Ritchie Press published THE CALIFORNIA DIARY OF GENERAL E.D. TOWNSEND, edited by Malcolm Edwards (a copy of which accompanies the manuscript volume). The illustrations from his diary exhibit the same significant skill evident in the present drawings, although they, of course, relate directly to California. The diary provides ample context for the present manuscript and confirms Townsend's preoccupation with theological matters during his posting in California; however, as a consequence of an unfortunate gap in the printed narrative from February 8, 1853 to September 15, 1854, there is no specific mention of this manuscript. In all, this highly unusual manuscript records one of the off-duty preoccupations of a ranking military figure of significance posted to Northern California coincident with one of the region's most historically important decades.
  • $5,000
  • $5,000
book (2)

ST. LOUIS’ ISLE, OR TEXIANA; WITH ADDTIONAL OBSERVATIONS MADE IN THE UNITED STATES AND IN CANADA

Hooton, Charles xiii,[3],204pp., plus six lithographic plates (including frontis. portrait) and [3]pp. of ads. Half title. Original publisher's embossed teal cloth, spine gilt. Cloth lightly worn and soiled, spine faded. Bookplate on front pastedown, large tear in rear free endpaper, mended with tissue. Occasional tanning. Small closed tear to outer margin of page xiii and to final ad leaf, not affecting text. Very good. Partially untrimmed. In a half blue morocco and cloth clamshell case, spine gilt. An account of the author's journey and short- lived residence in Galveston, Texas, in search of health. Hooton, an Englishman, had travelled to Texas, arriving in Galveston on March 29, 1841, but left shortly thereafter in December of the same year, returning to England by way of New Orleans, New York, and Toronto. Lured by promises of "the salubrity of the Texan paradise" and descriptions of Galveston as "the head-quarters of modern Texas in population, in commercial importance, in the civilization of its society, in religion, education, morals, and literature," Hooton found himself sorely disappointed upon his arrival. With the present work, he hoped to offer a "few chapters upon a country" which he "had the misfortune to visit." His aim, he explains, is to "persuade, through the influence of facts, any projecting Emigrants from following in the same fatal footsteps." Despite the changed political circumstances since his journey six years earlier - Texas had since been annexed by the United States in 1845 - Hooton expresses little hope that "Texas, under her new form of government, can offer the slightest atom of additional temptation to Northern Emigrants, to what was offered when the following pages were written." As he goes on to explain, "whatever alteration the form of government may have undergone.the climate has not changed along with it. There still remain the same sun, the same brick-burned earth - the same pestilent, sweltering bayous, in which the fish that cannot escape get cooked (though not literally boiled) to death, as before." Eberstadt notes that "[t]he title is the French form of the Old Spanish Name for Galveston Island." ST. LOUIS' ISLE was published posthumously in 1847. Hooton had died earlier that year from an overdose of morphine being used to treat the malaria he had contracted while in Galveston. In addition to the frontispiece portrait of Hooton, the present volume includes five lithographed plates taken from sketches by Hooton, intended to "convey a just and accurate idea of the nature of the place in which they were made." The plates consist of the following: "Settlers Houses on the Prairie"; "Scene on a Bayou"; "Galveston, from the Gulf Shore"; "General Hospital"; and "The ‘Fever' Burial Ground." An interesting account of a foreigner's journey to Texas, with some of the earliest published views of the Houston-Gulf Coast region. HOWES H626, "aa." SABIN 32892. EBERSTADT 114:761. RAINES, p.118. BRADFORD 2372. TYLER, TEXAS LITHOGRAPHS, pp.66-71.
  • $7,500
  • $7,500
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PANORAMA OF SAN FRANCISCO, FROM CALIFORNIA ST. HILL

Muybridge, Eadweard Albumen photographic panorama mounted on eleven panels, the entire panorama measuring a total of 7 1/2 x 87 1/4 inches. Caption title, photographic credit, and publisher's imprint printed on center panel. [with:] PANORAMA OF SAN FRANCISCO FROM CALIFORNIA-STREET HILL. KEY. San Francisco: Morse's Gallery, 1877. Albumen photograph, 7 3/4 x 10 1/2 inches, mounted on slightly larger printed card reading "Muybridge, Photo., Morse's Gallery. San Francisco" at the foot. PANORAMA: Each panel backed by cloth and tipped into original burgundy cloth portfolio, front board stamped in gilt. Cloth a bit rubbed and stained, worn at the edges, corners, and spine ends. The images themselves are very clean and bright. KEY: Some light soiling to the margins of the card mount, trimmed close along the right edge. Overall, the panorama and the key are in near fine condition. One of the landmarks of 19th-century American photography, and an iconic panoramic image of San Francisco, accompanied by the extraordinarily rare KEY to Muybridge's work. This remarkable panorama shows the dramatic growth of San Francisco nearly thirty years after the onset of the Gold Rush. In the 1870s, San Francisco audiences were hungry for panoramic displays, and the rest of the country was intrigued by San Francisco, the largest city in the West. Muybridge satisfied all appetites by providing a 360° view of the city, creating what Rebecca Solnit calls "an impossible sight, a vision of the city in all directions, a transformation of a circular space into a linear photograph." David Harris calls Muybridge's San Francisco panorama "one of the supreme conceptual and technical achievements in the history of architectural photography." Eadweard Muybridge took the photographs that make up this panorama from a vantage point on the central tower of the unfinished Nob Hill residence of railroad baron Mark Hopkins, then the highest point in the developed portion of the city. The work was done in June or July, 1877 and took some five hours to complete, based on the shifting shadows seen in the image. Muybridge began in the late morning with a view toward the southwest (the tenth plate in the panorama) and proceeded in a clockwise direction, moving his camera away from the sun from one image to the next. Muybridge's view is from some 380 feet above sea level, and the view reaches some fifty miles into the distance and encompasses a width of fifteen miles. Despite the great scope of the work, precise details of the city are visible throughout, and one can clearly see hanging laundry, ships in the harbor, shop signs, and a clock on a tower in the fifth panel reading nearly five-thirty (other copies of the panorama show the clock reading one forty-five). San Francisco spreads throughout the panorama, and the dynamism of the city is clearly evident, as many unfinished buildings and roads under construction are also seen. Muybridge's panorama was advertised as being for sale in July 1877, offered for eight dollars rolled or ten dollars accordion- folded and bound, as in the present copy. Buyers could purchase the panorama directly from Muybridge, or through Morse's Gallery. This copy of Muybridge's panorama is especially desirable, as it is accompanied by the exceedingly rare KEY to the image, produced about a month after the PANORAMA itself. The KEY is a very interesting piece of photography and promotion itself, essentially serving three purposes. First, it was used to promote the sale of Muybridge's magnificent eleven-part panorama, showing the entirety of the image and advertising that Muybridge was a "landscape, marine, architectural, and engineering photographer," an official photographer for the U.S. government, and a Grand Prize medalist at the Vienna Exhibition in 1873. It also advertises other photographic work available at Morse's Gallery, including images of California, Alaska, Mexico, and the Isthmus of Panama, as well as "horses photographed while running or trotting at full speed," a direct reference to Muybridge's pioneering work photographing horses in motion. Second, it is a detailed key to the panorama itself, identifying 221 locations numbered in the negative, corresponding to a key below the image of the city. Finally, it is a significant, separately-issued panoramic view of San Francisco in its own right. David Harris notes: "In addition to major geographical features like the Golden Gate and Angel Island, Muybridge identifies private residences, businesses, and institutions which by the late 1870s had, as much as the natural landscape itself, given the city its identifiable character. His list features religious and educational institutions, a range of the city's industries.major governmental and commercial structures, and the homes of some of the city's best-known and wealthiest residents. Where his camera angle allows clear views of entire rows of comfortable residences, as on Bush Street west of Jones, or Pine Street west of Mason, the photographer has included every homeowner's name in his annotations. The presences of these owners.suggests that Muybridge was as much concerned with marketing his images to interested residents as he was with producing a definitive listing of the city's elite." The KEY is decidedly rarer than the PANORAMA itself. Aside from the present copy, Rare Book Hub reports only two other copies of the KEY and PANORAMA together at auction, at Sotheby's in 1979 and in the Streeter sale in 1968; and RBH records only a single copy of the PANORAMA and KEY together in the trade, offered by Charles Wood in 1987. So, to our knowledge, only four copies of the KEY and the PANORAMA have sold together over the last fifty-six years, as opposed to more than a dozen copies of the PANORAMA alone at auction and in the trade in that same time period. Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was one of the great photographic innovators of the 19th century. Born in England, he came to San Francisco in 1855 and built his reputation
  • $67,500
  • $67,500
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MAP OF SAN FRANCISCO, COMPILED FROM LATEST SURVEYS & CONTAINING ALL LATE EXTENSIONS & DIVISION OF WARDS

[San Francisco] Lithographed map, issued as a letter sheet, measuring 9 x 11 inches and printed on blue paper. In a cloth chemise and half morocco and cloth slipcase, spine gilt. Very lightly silked on the verso, repairing neat splits along folds, and some tears in the top edge. Very good. In a cloth chemise and half morocco and cloth slipcase, spine gilt. An early and important map of the developing city of San Francisco, issued as a letter sheet by the lithographic firm of Britton & Rey. It shows the city bounded by San Francisco Bay, the Presidio Ranch, and Mission Creek and Tracy Street. Most significantly, it shows proposed extensions of the city's waterfront area into the bay. Speculation in these proposed lots was running rampant at the time, and the city had sold "water lots" in the central business district as early as 1847 in order to pay down municipal debt. Planked streets are shown in darker tones, and the extra width of Market and California streets is indicated. The "Mission Plank Road," a toll road built in 1851, is also indicated. A vignette of a building in the lower right corner is captioned "Page Bacon & Co. - Adams & Co.," showing the offices of the important banking firms that likely commissioned the map. A key gives the locations of City Hall, the post office, customs house, places of worship, etc. "The date was derived from comparisons with the B.F. Butler map of 1852 and the Zakreski map of 1853" - Streeter. Baird locates only three copies of this scarce and important early San Francisco map. BAIRD, CALIFORNIA'S PICTORIAL LETTER SHEETS 149. CLIFFORD LETTER SHEET COLLECTION 155. WOODBRIDGE, SAN FRANCISCO IN MAPS & VIEWS, pp.52-54. PETERS, CALIFORNIA ON STONE, p.83. STREETER SALE 3885. EBERSTADT 158:31.
  • $3,750
  • $3,750
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DIARIO DEL VIAGE EXPLORADOR DE LAS CORBETAS ESPAÑOLAS “DESCUBIERTA” Y “ATREVIDA” EN LOS ANOS DE 1789 A 1794, LLEVADO POR EL TENIENTE DE NAVIO D. FRANCISCO JAVIER DE VIANA.

Viana, Francisco Javier de [2],360pp., including two titlepages. Each page of text is printed within a decorative border. Contemporary marbled boards, rebacked in modern brown morocco with modern brown morocco corners. Boards slightly rubbed and shelfworn. A few gatherings tanned, leaf with pp.115-116 bound out of order. A very good copy. In a brown cloth clamshell box, spine gilt. A very rare work, the first published account of the Malaspina expedition of 1789-94. Malaspina, an Italian who sailed under the Spanish flag, was for a long time virtually forgotten. Nevertheless, his voyage of circumnavigation stands as Spain's most important 18th-century scientific exploration in the Pacific. Although an official publication was envisioned from the start, with artists and scientists aboard working towards its production, Malaspina became the victim of Spanish court intrigues, and the elaborate expedition report never materialized. It was not until 1885 that his narrative was published in Madrid. The present book thus stands as the first publication on the Malaspina expedition. It is based on the narrative of an ensign on the voyage, Francisco Viana, who settled in Uruguay towards the beginning of the 19th century. According to Palau, Viana's account was prepared for publication by D. Manuel Dribe, who worked with the manuscript which was still in the possession of Viana's sons in Montevideo. Viana's narrative adds greatly to the later publication of Malaspina's account, elaborating with much detail on the visits to the northwest coast of America (Nootka), Australia (describing Port Jackson barely five years after its settlement), Manila, Acapulco, Monterey, Tierra del Fuego, Islas Malvinas, and Patagonia. Malaspina's expedition is one of the great voyages of exploration of the 18th century and is often likened to the exploits of La Pérouse and Captain Cook. "Malaspina left Cadiz in 1789 and visited the western coast of North America as far as 60 degrees North latitude. He then returned to South America, by way of the Philippine Islands and Australia, rerounded Cape Horn, and reached Cadiz in 1794. During his voyage he visited Nootka Sound and Monterey; he gives an account of his explorations on the California coast. The work also contains Ferrer Maldonado's relation of the discovery of the Straits of Anian; accounts of the principal Spanish expeditions to the North Pacific between 1774 and 1791; a description of the country and customs of California; and a long historical introduction of the voyage by Pedro de Novo y Colson" - Hill (describing the 1885 publication of Malaspina's narrative). "This diary is of immense value. It is the only full and detailed printed account of Malaspina's voyage from California to Alaska by one of the participants.For some reason, Viana's diary was published on the traveling press of the Army besieging Montevideo, during the war between Argentina and Uruguay. This is the reason for the extreme rarity of this important diary, not recorded by Sabin or Wagner" - Lada Mocarski. Not in the catalogue of the Hill Collection, though there is a copy at the University of California at San Diego. An important and exceedingly rare Pacific voyage account. FERGUSON 5100, 5228. PALAU 361688. HOWES V85. LADA-MOCARSKI 134. TOURVILLE 4696. WICKERSHAM 6642.
  • $27,500
  • $27,500
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SLAVE SONGS OF THE UNITED STATES

[2],xliv,[6],64,[2],65-82,[2],83-90,[93]-115pp. (as issued), including much printed music. Original pebbled brown cloth, spine gilt. Cloth sunned, spine neatly mended, retaining most of original cloth. Light tanning and foxing, an occasional red ink stain, otherwise quite clean internally. Very good. First edition of an eminently important and influential collection of slave songs published in the aftermath of the Civil War, and the first "systematic effort to collect and preserve" African-American spirituals. The text brings together 136 such songs, dividing them between regions: Southeastern ("South Carolina, Georgia, and the Sea Islands"), "Northern Seaboard Slave States" (Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina), "Inland Slaves States: Including Tennessee, Arkansas, and the Mississippi River," and the Gulf States, including Florida and Louisiana. The index is even more specific as to the locality from which the song emanates, and occasional footnotes add considerable detail about the history of various songs, describe regional variations, and tell the stories of how the compilers came to learn them. The songs include phonetic renditions of now-famous titles such as "Roll, Jordan, Roll," "Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Had," and "Come Along, Moses," and conclude with seven songs in Creole ("negro-French") "obtained from a lady who heard them sung, before the war, on the 'Good Hope' plantation, St. Charles Parish, Louisiana." A lengthy preface, signed in print by editors and compilers William Francis Allen, Charles Pickard Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, discusses the history and traditions of the songs and singing practice amongst the enslaved, and further provides an interesting and extensive grammatical and phonological analysis of Port Royal dialect. All three of the contributors to this volume came to work on the "Port Royal Experiment," during which time they communicated and recorded the majority of the present songs. The Experiment began less than a year after the first shots of the war, when the Union army occupied South Carolina's Sea Islands. The islands' entire enslaved population was freed, and given the opportunity to acquire their former masters' plantations and manage them personally. Missionaries and educators were brought in to create schools, and Port Royal was established as an independent community of free Blacks. The process was expanded even further in 1865, when Sherman ordered all of the land on the southeastern seaboard confiscated and sold or used to settle the Black refugees who had followed his army on their march to the sea. The experiment, though successful in proving that free Blacks could and would own, manage, and profit from their own plantations, proved short-lived; Andrew Johnson soon returned most of the confiscated lands to their White owners as part of his reconciliatory plan for Reconstruction. Allen ran a school for freedmen on the islands from 1863-4 before returning to work with refugees in Arkansas, Charles Pickard Ware was a civilian administrator for the Union Army on the island and transcribed many of the songs here personally, and Lucy McKim Garrison (who married William Lloyd Garrison's third son), was the daughter of a Philadelphia abolitionist and came to the islands with her father. Garrison also published several of the songs in this volume individually a few years prior, which are considered the earliest "slave songs" printed with full musical scores. This collection is the first of what would become a profusion of attempts to "save" the art of the spiritual from extinction. Not unlike the myth of the "vanishing Indian," there was a popular conception (equally prevalent among the formerly enslaved) that the old "slave songs" would disappear entirely in the face of freedom, as free Blacks would naturally come around to White forms of singing and worship. "That these warnings and predictions were still being issued half a century later indicates that the old music did not die a sudden death.but there can be no doubt that the spirituals no longer occupied the position they had enjoyed in slavery. One observer after another attested to the fact that they were being displaced by standard hymns, Moody and Sankey revival songs, and other forms of religious music" (Levine, p.163). The first edition of the first systematic collection of African-American music; a scarce and important work in the historiography of Black music and culture in America. Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness (Oxford University Press, 1978). WORK, p.435. BLOCKSON 9992. LIBRARY COMPANY, AFRO-AMERICANA 247.
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NARRATIVE OF THE MOST EXTRAORDINARY AND DISTRESSING SHIPWRECK OF THE WHALE-SHIP ESSEX, OF NANTUCKET; WHICH WAS ATTACKED AND FINALLY DESTROYED BY A LARGE SPERMACETI- WHALE, IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN; WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE UNPARALLELED SUFFERINGS OF THE CAPTAIN AND CREW DURING A SPACE OF NINETY-THREE DAYS AT SEA, IN OPEN BOATS, IN THE YEARS 1819 & 1820

128pp. 12mo. Contemporary tan paper spine and green paper boards. Spine expertly repaired in matching paper, retaining a remnant of printed paper spine label. Modern bookplate on front pastedown. Lightly tanned, scattered moderate foxing. Very good. Untrimmed. In a folding cloth box, gilt morocco label. A classic Pacific whaling rarity: the extremely rare first authentic account of the famous Essex shipwreck, whose sinking by a whale was, apart from being a sensational story in its own right, a landmark in American literature as the inspiration for the climax of Melville's MOBY DICK. Chase, first mate of the Essex and a native of Nantucket, provides a firsthand description of the ramming and sinking of the ship by a furious sperm whale on November 20, 1819, some two thousand miles west of the Galapagos. The surviving twenty crew members struggled to exist in three open boats, but only eight lived through the ordeal. Crew members on all three boats resorted to cannibalism eating those who died of natural causes, and killing one member when the need arose. All six of the Black crew members died or were reported missing. The voyage of the two remaining boats that were rescued off the coast of South America was twice as long as that of Bligh in the launch of the Bounty. This has always been a scarce book. In 1935 the Golden Cockerel press published an attractive limited edition of the text with wood-engravings by Robert Gibbings. As with many (even most) American books of the period, there is some tanning and foxing in this copy as a result of the poor paper used in the publication. However, this is an attractive copy of the book, uncut and in original boards, with a portion of the original printed spine label remaining. HILL 281. FORSTER 17. HOWES C318, "c." SHAW & SHOEMAKER 4964. SABIN 12189. HUNTRESS 205C.
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AN ACCOUNT OF EXPEDITIONS TO THE SOURCES OF THE MISSISSIPPI, AND THROUGH THE WESTERN PARTS OF LOUISIANA, TO THE SOURCES OF THE ARKANSAW, KANS, LA PLATTE, AND PIERRE JAUN, RIVERS.DURING THE YEARS 1805, 1806, AND 1807. AND A TOUR THROUGH THE INTERIOR PARTS OF NEW SPAIN.IN THE YEAR 1807

Two volumes. Text: 8,105,[11],[107]-277,[5],65,[1],53,[1],87pp. plus three folding tables. Atlas volume: six engraved maps (five folding) and three folding letterpress tables. Text: Original plain blue-grey paper boards with tan paper backstrip, expertly rebacked in matching paper with most of original backstrip laid down, printed paper label, manuscript spine title. Boards lightly rubbed, soiled and edgeworn, corners bumped. Scattered tanning and staining, an occasional paper flaw (with loss of a few letters on p.44). Atlas: Quarto. Contemporary half speckled calf and marbled boards, expertly rebacked in matching calf with portions of original backstrip laid down. Early bookseller's ticket of "Hugh Hammell's Cheap Bookstore" of Philadelphia on front pastedown. Tanning, some offsetting from plates. Text and atlas in very good condition overall, with the text volume untrimmed and appendix to part one unopened. Howes' "best issue" of one of the most important of all American travel narratives: the first edition of the report of the first United States government expedition to the Southwest, including an account of Pike's exploration of the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers, the sources of the Mississippi River, and the Spanish settlements in New Mexico. This copy is in its original binding with the atlas bound separately, and is very unusual thus. Pike's narrative stands with those of Lewis and Clark and Long as among the most important early books on western exploration and as a cornerstone of Western Americana. "In 1805, Pike was given the difficult assignment of conducting a reconnaissance of the upper Mississippi region. He was ordered to explore the headwaters of that river, to purchase sites from the Indians for further military posts, and to bring a few influential chiefs back to St. Louis for talks. The trip was only moderately successful as a mission to the tribes, but Pike was able to convey important geographical information to President Jefferson and other Washington officials. On Pike's second expedition, 1806-1807, he was assigned to explore the head-waters of the Arkansas River, then proceed south and descend the Red River from its source.Pike and his men were taken into custody by a Spanish patrol, and Pike was able to observe many areas in New Mexico, Chihuahua, and Texas.His book created interest in the Southwest and stimulated the expansionist movement in Texas" - Hill. The maps were the first to exhibit a geographic knowledge of the Southwest based on firsthand exploration and are considered "milestones in the mapping of the American West" (Wheat). "The description of Texas is excellent" - Streeter, TEXAS. This work was published in two forms: as a single octavo volume with all the maps and tables bound in, or, as here, in two volumes with the maps and folding tables in a quarto volume. This latter form was recognized by Howes as being the "best issue." It is quite uncommon to find the text and atlas bound separately, even more so to find them in their original bindings, as here. A very desirable set of a landmark work of western exploration. HOWES P373, "b." WAGNER-CAMP 9:1. STREETER SALE 3125. WHEAT TRANSMISSISSIPPI 297, 298, 299. GRAFF 3290. FIELD 1217. STREETER TEXAS 1047C. HILL 1357. BRADFORD 4415. RITTENHOUSE 467. SABIN 62936. JONES 743. BRAISLIN 1474. REESE, BEST OF THE WEST 32.
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A GUIDE TO CONVERSATION IN THE ENGLISH AND CHINESE LANGUAGES FOR THE USE OF AMERICANS AND CHINESE IN CALIFORNIA AND ELSEWHERE

[3],viii,41,[3],179pp., printed in English and Chinese characters. Oblong octavo. Original printed yellow wrappers, printed in English on the front wrapper and spine, and in Chinese characters on the rear wrapper. Wrappers a bit soiled and edgeworn. Very clean internally. A very good copy, partially unopened. In a half morocco and cloth clamshell case, spine gilt. A very early and significant guide to Chinese- English conversation, one of the first such produced in the United States. The text contains hundreds of words and phrases, written in English and Chinese characters, and in Anglicized Chinese. Hernisz had served as an attaché to the U.S. diplomatic legation in China. He notes in the introduction that "the conclusion of treaties with western nations, the opening of the Five ports, and the discovery of gold in California, have caused a vast increase in the trade, more extensive intercourse, and closer relations" between the United States and China. The central importance of the Gold Rush is clear in the vocabulary, which lists "gold" as the first word, followed by "gold dust," "gold leaf," "iron-ore," and a host of other mining terms before moving on to food, clothing, and the other necessities of life. The text is quite comprehensive, however, listing hundreds of basic, everyday words and phrases - as well as some odd locutions. As noted by Cowan, the wrapper carries a date of 1855, though it is listed as 1854 on the titlepage. "The Chinese characters used in this volume were a part of the collection of type engraved by Marcellin Legrand, the first European to manufacture a set of Chinese type. The book was printed ?to supply, on the one hand, to Americans some knowledge of the Chinese idiom, and on the other, to the Chinese, some elementary instructions in the English language" - Howell. An important artifact of the growing Chinese presence on the west coast of the United States in the second half of the 19th century, quite uncommon in the market, especially in the original wrappers. COWAN & DUNLAP, CHINESE QUESTION, p.35. COWAN, p.276. HOWELL 50:1548.
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MY OWN TIMES, EMBRACING ALSO, THE HISTORY OF MY LIFE

600,xxiii,[1]pp. Portrait. Thick 12mo. Original publisher's blindstamped brown cloth, spine gilt. Corners and spine ends expertly mended. Light scattered foxing. Very good. A presentation copy of this scarce and important work on early Illinois, inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper: "J. M. Peck, Rock Spring, Illinois, A present from the Author - Decbr 12th, 1855." This is almost certainly the prolific Baptist missionary and anti-slavery advocate, John Mason Peck (1789-1858), who spent much of his life on the Missouri and Illinois frontier. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, Peck arrived in St. Louis in late 1817, and spent the rest of his life preaching and establishing churches in the west. In all, he helped establish some 900 Baptist churches, including the African Church of St. Louis, and he was consequential in assuring that the 1824 constitution of Illinois would not permit slavery. Howes notes that of this first edition of Reynolds's memoir of 400 copies, 300 were destroyed in the Chicago fire of 1857. This work is not only Reynolds' autobiography, but also an essential history of Illinois that deals extensively with social, economic, and political conditions in the pioneer period and with the Black Hawk War. "A good picture of frontier society" - Buck. Howes considered it the "best picture of Illinois pioneer life." Reynolds (1788-1865) spent the early part of his life in Kentucky, travelling to Illinois with his parents in 1800. He became a lawyer, politician, governor of Illinois in 1830, and a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for ten years. Three chapters of this work are devoted to Mormonism, including its history, doctrine, and the murder of Joseph Smith and his brother in a Carthage, Illinois jail in 1844. An important and uncommon history of Illinois, this is the first presentation copy we have handled. BYRD 2343. HOWES R236, "b." CLARK II:57. BUCK 57. GRAFF 3479. STREETER SALE 1510. FLAKE 7122. SABIN 70420.
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MEMORIALS OF GEORGE FISHER, LATE SECRETARY TO THE EXPEDITION OF GEN. JOSE ANTONIO MEXIA, AGAINST TAMPICO, IN NOVEMBER, 1835. PRESENTED TO THE FOURTH AND FIFTH CONGRESSES OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, PRAYING FOR RELIEF IN FAVOR OF THE MEMBERS OF THE SAID EXPEDITION

6,[2],87,[1],7pp. plus two folding quarto- sized leaves of correspondence bound in at rear. Contemporary brown cloth. Worn at spine ends, cloth very lightly stained and rubbed. Ex-library, a duplicate from the Coe Collection at Yale, with bookplate on rear pastedown. Front hinge weak. Leaves of main section of text tanned and foxed with a few spots of soiling. Occasional marginal annotations in pencil. Modern bookplate to recto of final free endpaper. About very good. In a cloth chemise and half morocco and cloth slipcase, spine gilt. A presentation copy, inscribed by Fisher "To Christopher Fallon, Esq. of Philadelphia, Penn." in 1858, as is usually the case (see Streeter). Fisher has further marked this copy by making an index of the contents of the front free endpaper titled "Index to Special Reading." As with many of the copies inscribed by Fisher in 1858, the present copy also includes a printed biographical sketch of the author bound in at the front as well as reprints of two newspaper articles and two folded leaves of printed correspondence bound in at the rear. Streeter notes that some, but not all, of the 1858 presentation copies contain this additional printed material. One of the most important contemporary accounts of the Texan and Louisianian attack on Tampico, compiled by George Fisher, who participated in the events. As such, it is still probably the only firsthand account of this expedition. In the fall of 1835, the Committee on Texan Affairs at New Orleans outfitted a schooner for an attack on Tampico. The leader of the expedition was General Jose Antonio Mexia, who had deserted Santa Anna, with George Fisher serving as the group's secretary. The schooner was grounded in a storm off Tampico, and after a few skirmishes, Mexia and most of his force escaped, though twenty-eight of the invaders were captured and executed. In this memorial Fisher, a Hungarian by birth, gathers documents in support of the claim that the invasion was supported by leaders in Texas. Included is correspondence with General Cos, Fisher's address to the citizens of New Orleans in favor of the Texas Revolution, letters between Fisher and Stephen F. Austin, letters between Fisher and Mexia, the Declaration of the General Council of the Texan Provisional Government, muster rolls of the troops with details of the killed and wounded, and much more. "These MEMORIALS of Fisher's are a full and contemporaneous account of an episode in Texas history that just missed being one of its important events. If the Tampico Expedition from New Orleans in November, 1835, had gained its objective, the course of Texas history would have been changed and its leader, Mexia, and its secretary, Fisher, would have been Texas heroes" - Streeter. "Throughout the long and doubtful struggle, [Fisher] fought for Texas both with his sword and his pen, proving himself an adept with either weapon.One of the foundation documents of Texas history" - Eberstadt. "An excessively rare narrative of the expedition against Tampico, of the greatest importance to an understanding of the Texas Revolution.[and] a rare Houston imprint" - Littell sale catalogue. The present copy and another offered by Dorothy Sloan in 2001 are the only copies to appear at auction since the Littell sale in 1945, according to Rare Book Hub. STREETER TEXAS 384. HOWES F151, "b." GRAFF, FIFTY TEXAS RARITIES 22. EBERSTADT 105:292a. GRAFF 1329. RAINES, p.82. SABIN 24460. JONES CHECKLIST 1035. LITTELL SALE 355. BRAISLIN SALE 724.
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THE WESTERN TOURIST AND EMIGRANT’S GUIDE, WITH A COMPENDIOUS GAZETTEER OF THE STATES OF OHIO, MICHIGAN, INDIANA, ILLINOIS, AND MISSOURI, AND THE TERRITORIES OF WISCONSIN, AND IOWA.

180pp. plus handcolored folding map. 16mo. Publisher's black cloth, stamped in blind and gilt. Very light shelf wear. Light scattered foxing and tanning. Map a bit brittle, with two splits along folds (splits at cross-folds neatly repaired on the verso). Very good overall. First edition of what would prove to be one of Colton's most popular guidebooks, covering the states and territories of the Ohio and Mississippi valleys in detail. Situated firmly in the context of Manifest Destiny, Colton's preface proclaims that the "westward star of empire takes its way" to "the great region of the North and West." Though the text is ultimately in service of the impressive map, it nonetheless supplies prospective visitors and emigrants with a wealth of valuable information about the Midwest, including geography, climate, public land laws, cities and towns, and present government and infrastructure. The map itself is carefully handcolored and illustrates Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin and Iowa, "Showing the Township lines of the United States Surveys.," with a table of routes and distances, surrounded by a decorative border and a small inset illustration of Maiden Rock in Wisconsin. It appears Colton was well prepared for his guidebook's popularity - this first edition was printed from stereotype plates which were used for an 1840 reprint before a new edition was created for five more printings in the 1840s, later followed by third and fourth editions each of numerous printings themselves. This copy with the bookplate and ownership inscription of Fenner Bush (1791-1882), a Connecticut native who served one term as a state senator in 1848. An important and popular early guide for the rapidly growing Midwest. HOWES S615, "aa." GRAFF 3853. BUCK 348. SABIN 82931. RUMSEY 2583.003. RISTOW, p.316.
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VUE DE LA COLONIE ESPAGNOLE DU MISSISSIPI [sic], OU DES PROVINCES DE LOUISIANE ET FLORIDE OCCIDENTALE, EN L’ANNÉE 1802.

xx,318,5,[4]pp. plus two handcolored folding maps. Half title. Contemporary mottled calf, spine and boards tooled in gilt, gilt morocco label. Light shelf wear, corners a bit worn. Minor tanning and foxing. A very good copy. The first edition of this "entertaining and gossipy first-hand picture of life in New Orleans at the turn of the century.At the end are general accounts of the natural features of Louisiana, its commerce, and other general subjects. Its two colored maps, one of lower, the other of upper Louisiana.are well worth-while" - Streeter. "This resident observer has given a good description of Louisiana and West Florida.[during] the year in which the dominion of this region passed to the United States" - Raines. "Entertaining and gossipy" is one way to describe Berquin-Duvallon's work - another might be "bitter and scathing." The author was the owner of a sugar plantation on his native Saint Domingue until he was ejected by the uprising of 1793, fleeing to New Orleans as a refugee. Fearing the spread of the revolution, the Spanish colony refused to admit Haitian slaves, which immediately soured Berquin-Duvallon's opinion of his hosts. His colorful descriptions of the people and places he visited on the continent are venomous and unapologetic: New Orleans is miserable and foul, and its people greedy drunkards who take no notice of religion or manners, spend all night dancing and gambling, and are far too inclined to comingle with other races. Regardless, he considers the city's situation immensely advantageous, and predicts that it will become a leading power in North America in spite of its citizens. He also devotes chapters to descriptions of free and enslaved Blacks in the city - perhaps unsurprising given his recent past, the former are subject to his greatest vitriol, and are labeled as lazy, immoral, hateful, and ungrateful to the Whites, "les auteurs de leur existence." As a plantation owner, he also takes particular interest in the activities of the enslaved, and is relatively detailed in regard to their diet, treatment, work practices, leisure activities, and of course disposition towards a general insurrection. An interesting and detailed account of the Spanish colonies along the Gulf of Mexico immediately before the Louisiana Purchase. The Streeter copy was bought by Goodspeed's for $375 in 1968. HOWES B389, "aa." SABIN 4962. STREETER SALE 1530. CLARK II:79. RAINES, p.74. SERVIES 766. REESE, FEDERAL HUNDRED 94. DE RENNE, pp.310- 11. MONAGHAN 206. ECHEVERRIA & WILKIE 803/5. REESE, BEST OF THE WEST 23 (note).
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A NARRATIVE OF THE INCIDENTS ATTENDING THE CAPTURE, DETENTION, AND RANSOM OF CHARLES JOHNSTON, OF BOTETOURT COUNTY, VIRGINIA, WHO WAS MADE PRISONER BY THE INDIANS, ON THE RIVER OHIO, IN THE YEAR 1790.TO WHICH ARE ADDED, SKETCHES OF INDIAN CHARACTER AND MANNERS.

264pp., including errata. 12mo. Modern three-quarter burgundy morocco and cloth, spine gilt with raised bands. Contemporary bookplate on front pastedown (see below). Tear in upper margin of pp.101-104 (with no loss of text). Moderate foxing and tanning, old stain along the outer edge of first half of text. Very good overall. John Randolph of Roanoke's copy, with his bookplate on the front pastedown. Though in a modern binding, Randolph's bookplate has been preserved in the rebinding. A very interesting and uncommon provenance - this is the first book from John Randolph of Roanoke's library that we have handled. John Randolph of Roanoke (1773-1833) a Virginia planter, politician, and (briefly) United States Minister to Russia under Andrew Jackson, was an important ally of President Jefferson and supporter of his policies early in Randolph's tenure in the House of Representatives. Eventually, Randolph broke with Jefferson when he felt that the President was exerting too much power at the federal level, and abandoning the principles of state sovereignty and agrarian Republicanism. It seems clear that Randolph and Johnston were at least acquainted with one another. Randolph was neighbors with Charles Johnston's brother, Judge Peter Johnston, whose family lived near Randolph's Bizarre estate in Farmville, Virginia. As Randolph biographer William Cabell Bruce points out, the Johnstons were "[a]mong the families, with whom [Randolph] was most intimate, when he lived at Bizarre." There is at least one reference to Charles Johnston in Randolph's correspondence. Writing in 1807 to his nephew, Theodore Bland Dudley, who was then at school in Richmond, Randolph instructs him to "Call at Mr. Charles Johnston's, and inquire whether there are any letters there for me. Also, whether there is any news of the ships Calpe, Desdemona, or Rolla? - or any late arrival from London?" Johnston was working at the time as a merchant for the Richmond firm Picket, Pollard, and Johnston. Coincidentally, both Randolph and Johnston died the same year in 1833. In 1790, Johnston and his party were captured at the mouth of the Scioto and were taken to Sandusky by a band of Indians consisting of Cherokees, Shawnees, Delawares, and Wyandots. After several weeks they were discovered by British traders and taken to the safety of the British post at Detroit. Johnston later provided the American government with information about what he had seen. "One of the most interesting Indian captivities" - Streeter. HOWES J158. FIELD 784. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 29372. AYER 165. VAUGHAN 159. SABIN 36355. THOMSON 650. JONES 884. STREETER SALE 1366. GRAFF 2226. William Cabell Bruce, John Randolph of Roanoke, 1773-1833, Vol. 2 (New York, 1922), p.420. John Randolph to Theodore Bland Dudley, October 6, 1807, in Letters of John Randolph to a Young Relative; Embracing a Series of Years from Early Youth to Mature Manhood (Philadelphia, 1834), p.40.
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TEXAS UND SEINE REVOLUTION

iv,258pp. Lacks the advertisement leaf. Contemporary paper-covered boards, rebacked with portions of original spine laid down, new gilt morocco label (fragment of original spine label laid in). Light shelf wear, corners neatly repaired. Light tanning, scattered foxing, old stain in lower portion of final quarter of the textblock. Half-inch closed tear in upper edge of titlepage. Overall, a very good copy. The exceedingly rare first edition of this important Texas book by "the leading surveyor, map maker and explorer of the early Southwest" (Howes). At eighteen years of age, Hermann Ehrenberg emigrated from Germany to New Orleans, and joined the Louisiana Greys to fight in the Texas Revolution in 1835. He took part in the siege of Bexar, the battle of Coleto, and was one of only a handful of survivors of the Fannin (or Goliad) Massacre, from which he escaped. "According to a translation of Ehrenberg's own account [of the Fannin Massacre], after the command to kneel was given and the shooting started, he jumped up, and, hidden by the gun smoke, dashed for the San Antonio River. On the way, a Mexican soldier slashed him in the head with his saber, but Ehrenberg managed to get by him and jumped in the river crying, "The Republic of Texas forever!" For several days he wandered the prairies, finding shelter in a couple of abandoned plantation houses along the way, finally reasoning that the only way to survive would be to surrender to the Mexican army. Ehrenberg posed as a Prussian traveler seeking protection, and General Urrea, admiring the boy's daring, took in the 'little Prussian'. Ehrenberg was taken with Urrea's troops to Matagorda, and when Urrea and his troops began their retreat to Mexico following news of the battle of San Jacinto and the capture of Sana Anna, Ehrenberg escaped and eventually reached freedom. He was discharged from the Texas army on June 2, 1836" - Handbook of Texas. After returning to Germany to study mining, Ehrenberg travelled to the American West again in 1844. During the next twenty years, Ehrenberg mapped the Gadsden Purchase, trapped furs in Oregon, surveyed streets and made a map of Honolulu, Hawaii, assisted Fremont in the Bear Flag Revolt, participated in the Gold Rush, helped establish a mining company in Arizona, and served as an Indian agent for the Mojaves on the Colorado River Reservation. Ehrenberg was murdered on October 9, 1866 near present-day Palm Springs, California. Thomas W. Streeter referred to Ehrenberg's narrative as "one of the most valuable sources for part of the military phase of the Texas Revolution." John Jenkins, in his BASIC TEXAS BOOKS, praised the account as "[o]ne of the earliest German accounts of Texas, [and].an important source work on the events of the Texas Revolution." This first edition is exceptionally rare and is the only edition under this title; it precedes two later editions with differing titles that were published in 1844 and 1845. Uncommon in the marketplace, this is the third copy we have handled in nearly fifty years. HOWES E83, "aa." BASIC TEXAS BOOKS 54. STREETER TEXAS 1454. GRAFF, FIFTY TEXAS RARITIES 25. HANDBOOK OF TEXAS II, p.805. GRAFF 1227. RAINES, p.75. RADER 1285. JONES 1065. SABIN 22072. CLARK III:36.
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DRAFT OF A CONSTITUTION PUBLISHED UNDER THE DIRECTION OF A COMMITTEE OF CITIZENS OF COLORADO FOR CONSIDERATION AND DISCUSSION

xiii,[1],54pp., plus errata and [4]pp. of ads. Original printed grey wrappers. Some staining to the wrappers, corners worn, two holes punched through in the left margin. Quite clean internally. Very good. In a half morocco and cloth clamshell box, spine gilt. A rare and eccentric Colorado constitution, proposed the year before the territory attained statehood. Wynar credits authorship of this Colorado constitution to Montague Richard Leverson, and the Yale copy is inscribed by Leverson to Yale paleontologist, Othniel C. Marsh. Leverson (1830-1925) was a British-born lawyer and follower of Jeremy Bentham, who eventually became a Colorado rancher. This draft of the Colorado constitution was issued anonymously, but endorsed by a group of eighteen concerned citizens and is out of the norm in drafting a state constitution. The text includes a nine-page introduction, apparently by Leverson but signed in print only by "The Author." The constitution proposes that the chief officer of the state not be a governor but a "Minister of Justice." "After the first few years of experiment, it is hoped and expected that the appointment of the MINISTER OF JUSTICE will be confided to the legislature, and that his tenure of office will be for life, or at least for a long term of years, unless removed for cause." The appointment system would be greeted with stiff opposition from the politicians. "How far the 'politicians' may be expected to resist the adoption of such a system.may be judged from the following facts: The office of County Clerk and Recorder of Arapahoe County is currently believed to yield to its incumbent an income (legitimate but scandalous), of 15 to 20,000 dollars per annum. Hundreds of competent persons would gladly accept the office and perform all its duties for $4,000 per annum." When this constitution was being drafted, the BOULDER NEWS suggested that the Colorado Territory elect nonpartisan delegates to the constitutional convention, and it was suggested in the Denver DAILY TRIBUNE that a "Constituional Association" be formed. Naturally, the old ways remained in place. As "The Author" of this draft states in his introduction: "Little hope is entertained that the professional politician, or with some noble exceptions, the lawyers will fail to give this draft of a Constitution a bitter opposition." This unusual constitutional document is rare, and is not listed in Eberstadt's CONSTITUTION CATALOGUE 161, nor was a copy in the impressive collection of American constitutions assembled by Dorothy Goldman. Only this copy and the Streeter copy appear in auction records. The Streeter copy sold in 1968 for $950, reappeared at the Sang sale in 1980 making only $750, and was acquired by Malcolm Forbes. It appeared at the 2005 Christie's sale of Malcolm Forbes' collection, and was bought by this firm for a private collector, for $3120. The present copy was sold by Dorothy Sloan in 1999 for $3450???? An attractive copy in the original wrappers, of a rare and significant Colorado constitution. STREETER SALE 2184 (this copy). ALLEN & McMURTRIE (COLORADO) 245. WYNAR 7264.
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DIRECTORY OF TRINIDAD, COLORADO, FOR 1888. TOGETHER WITH A RESUME OF ITS ADVANTAGES AS A MINING, MANUFACTURING, AND DISTRIBUTING CENTRE

176pp., including numerous in-text illustrations, portraits, advertisements, and a map, plus five photogravure plates and one tipped-in printer's advertisement. Original maroon cloth, ruled in blind, boards titled in gilt. Hinges expertly repaired. Very clean internally. Near fine. A significant association copy of this very rare directory of Colorado's chief coal mining center, inscribed by one of Trinidad's leading citizens, who also contributed to and published the book. This copy is inscribed on the front free endpaper by "M. Beshoar," an important figure in Trinidad and a chief contributor to this publication. Michael Beshoar (1833-1907) was born in Pennsylvania, graduating from the University of Michigan in 1853. He worked as a physician in Arkansas until the outbreak of the Civil War, enlisting as a surgeon in the Confederate army. After he was captured by Union forces in 1863, he signed an amnesty oath and resumed work at the Union army's hospital in St. Louis. He was eventually transferred to Fort Kearny and afterwards remained in the West, settling near Trinidad in the early 1870s. In Trinidad he continued his career as a physician, operated several drug stores, was elected a Colorado State Representative and Las Animas County judge, and, most pertinently, founded the TRINIDAD DAILY ADVERTISER whose offices printed this directory (including his portrait on page nineteen). Prior to this directory, Beshoar had done similar promotion for his new home with his 1882 book, ALL ABOUT TRINIDAD AND LAS ANIMAS COUNTY COLORADO. Given Beshoar's history (and the fact that he is the only person thanked by name in the introduction), it would not be a great leap to imagine that much of the first part of the present directory is his work. Founded as a stop near the Santa Fe Trail in the early 1860s, Trinidad was transformed by the discovery of vast coal deposits the following decade. Unlike flash-in-the-pan gold and silver boom towns, Trinidad's coal fortunes proved more enduring, sustaining active growth and industry through the rest of the century. Billed in the introduction as the "first Directory of Trinidad," this work is as much a promotional and guidebook as a directory. Beginning with poetry and prose descriptions and illustrations of the geography surrounding Trinidad, the text goes on to describe the history and present state of of the town's industries, including schools and churches, cattle raising, agriculture, and timber, and particularly focuses on the coal industry and considerable railroad presence. Throughout, this section is illustrated by engravings of natural features, significant public and private buildings, and portraits of notable citizens. Before beginning the city directory proper, lists are also provided of nearby coal mines and mining companies, including names of officers and full lists of employees, sometimes numbering several hundred. The city directory itself is organized alphabetically, listing name, occupation, and address for each inhabitant, and is liberally interspersed with illustrated advertisements for local businesses including real estate (private and mining), hotels, whiskey, construction companies, groceries, and more. Ffiteen laundries are listed, all but one operated by Chinese. The compiler of this directory is W.H. Whitney, listed with a profession of "real estate" and an address at the Grand Union Hotel. A series of rare but interesting early town maps of western cities, underwritten by the major western railroads and published by a "W.H. Whitney" in the late 1880s, are likely the work of the same man, who appears to have labored to drive traffic towards Colorado and Utah as the silver boom was dying down. OCLC records only six copies of this directory and promotional of Trinidad County, at the Denver Public Library (which also holds Beshoar's papers), Colorado College, the Colorado Historical Society, Southern Methodist University, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Michigan. The only listing in Rare Book Hub is for a copy offered by the Eberstadts in 1940. This is the first copy we have handled. Rare, and a wonderful association copy. WYNAR 1213. EBERSTADT 115:311. OCLC 11673417, 166589948, 24961000.
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HISTORY OF CRIPPLE CREEK. AMERICA’S MOST FAMOUS GOLD CAMP

50pp., including double-page map and photographic illustrations. Original pictorial wrappers. Wrappers somewhat soiled and creased, neatly mended along the spine. Faint vertical crease throughout, otherwise internally clean. Very good overall. A rare, thoroughly illustrated promotional for Cripple Creek, Colorado, issued at the height of its meteoric rise as one of the most successful gold mining regions in the United States. Gold was discovered at Cripple Creek in 1891, and by 1900 it had become the most productive gold mine in the country, remaining so for the next twenty years. Though its population fell dramatically into the 1920s and 30s (down to about 400 in 1970), the district has seen a minor resurgence as a casino destination after gambling was legalized in 1991. While supposedly authored by a "George Daniel," the present pamphlet is primarily the brainchild of prolific Denver journalist and publisher W.C. Calhoun. Calhoun, whose portrait appears inside multiple times and who was billed by the Denver Daily Times as "probably the most extensive general advertiser in the West," was publisher of both the Denver Sentinel and Illustrated Weekly papers, and was said to advertise his papers, various products of all sort, and the West in general, in more than 1000 publications as of 1896. The present pamphlet, though described as a history, is in reality a promotional for the fast-growing mining region. After presenting a smattering of legends about the region's naming and founding, the author progresses to a florid description of the successful gold mines in the region and their output, with repeated assurances of their continued productivity. He goes on to briefly describe nearby settlements including Victor and West Creek, lode mining efforts and the "cyanide process" for extracting gold, and the current state of specific mines such as the Anaconda and Independence. The booklet is extensively illustrated with photographic reproductions throughout, including images of crowds of people at Cripple Creek, an aerial view of Anaconda, and exterior views of various mines and settlements. The two-page map, dated March 1st, 1896, is titled "New Topographical Map of the Cripple Creek District" and depicts town plans, railways, mining shafts, and tunnels, as well as nearby mountain peaks labeled with elevations. The author notes that "It will be an easy matter to lift the staples and take out the map, should it be desired, to place upon the wall," though thankfully that was never done with this copy. True to form, the wrappers advertise a plethora of other products published or supported by Calhoun, such as his printing office, petrified wood samples from Florissant, other books including a guide for writing love letters and, apparently, an offer of free gold rings set with "gems of the Rockies." While this publication is billed as "Vol. I. No. 2" of The Quarterly Sentinel, it appears that number one was an earlier printing of a nearly identical pamphlet and subsequent years do not appear to have filled out their runs, though a handful more were produced, including "Colorado's Gold Fields" (Vol II No. 1) and "Alaska's Gold Fields" (Vol. II No. 3). A rare promotional from the halcyon days of this major Colorado mining district. LINGENFELTER CO:1553. WYNAR 1417. OCLC 11420283, 732795181.
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[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED, BY A YOUNG MAN TOURING THE SOUTH IN THE 1820s, INCLUDING HIS DETAILED IMPRESSIONS OF NEW ORLEANS]

[4]pp. on a folded folio sheet. Old folds. Lightly tanned. Neat splits along folds expertly repaired with Japanese tissue. Three holes in second leaf, affecting approximately twenty words of text (also mended with Japanese tissue). In good plus condition overall. A garrulous letter from a young man born in Savannah to his father, describing his travels in the South and his experience of New Orleans, which he found too much under the continuing sway of French culture. Augustus Webb, apparently writing to his father Abner for the first time in two years, begins his story in Natchez, Mississippi, where he was unsuccessful finding employment. From Natchez, he made his way down to New Orleans drawing on favors from his father: "I still kept up a good appearance besides as Mr. W. of Balt., a gentleman traveller, for pleasure, information, health, &c &c and was respected accordingly and experienced the utility of having a father established, known, and respected in business as you are - several times made me quite vain. All that I may expend I shall ne'er regret, as my tour has been the best school I've ever been placed in." The most interesting portions of Webb's letter deal with his impressions of New Orleans, beginning with his first sight of the port: "the masts of the Shipping appeared, all having the sails lowered, like so many trees, thickly set, of like a dreary wood in winter." His opinion of the city does not warm from there - he is particularly dismayed by the lack of care for the Sabbath: "As I expected dissipation reigns - Sunday is little regarded - Steam B. unloading (always arriving and departing, and the whole time I was here, not less than 18 or 20), drays running, Congoes dancing by the banjou, vislin[sic], singing, &c. in groups on the green - a novel sight, Gambling houses, innumerable billiard tables,.&c.&c. in profession ALL in active motion on this their pleasure day." Also of note are Webb's thoughts on the faubourgs (i.e. French quarters): "The French have the ascendancy, and their language is chiefly spoken - many of the Americans in the faubourgs, where they principally reside, remember this 'most holy day', yet the majority, I'm told, are as fond of these things, viz: attending the theatre on this evening, quadroon balls, masquerades &c, as the French themselves - but in time the Americans must have the imperial sway and there will be a revolution of affairs - these things in time must abate, republicanism cannot permit them to endure - morality, if not Christianity, must prevail on this day. The contrast between our still and these, can I call them noisy sabbaths? is, I assure, very striking! - (Albert 'O! Tempera! O! mores!') - but to another theme, I'm encroaching on time & paper." In addition to these observations, Webb describes the sorry state of the New Orleans cemetery, including its tombs ("'Bake Ovens' - probably from the analogy to our Country brick back ovens"), the curious practice of disinterring and burning bodies at the end of each year ("like the immolation of Hindoo women, it reminds me"), and their constant struggles with the high water table. Aside from a trip south of the city to visit "the field where General (or rather now Pres.) Jackson achieved his military glory" and bring home some sugar cane, the remainder of Webb's letter is more personal in nature. He describes the beautiful countryside, apprises his father of the whereabouts and health of a litany of personal and family acquaintances, details his departure from New Orleans ("On the whole, I did not like the city, being the most muddy I ever saw on the least rain"), describes a particularly painful bout of sea sickness on the Gulf of Mexico, and generally goes on about his daily activities. Abner Webb was a dry goods merchant originally from Savannah, prior to moving to Baltimore in 1809. He retired from business in 1845 and devoted the remainder of his life to charitable efforts. Augustus was one of five sons and four daughters. A cheerful and enlightening account of a young man's journey across the American south in the 1820s, with particular attention paid to the wanton morality of New Orleans.