Powell, H.M.T.
[16],272pp., including in-text illustrations, plus sixteen plates (four folding, including frontispiece) and two folding maps. Titlepage printed in red and black. Folio. Original half pigskin and cloth, raised bands. Leather scuffed near top of rear board, otherwise the binding in much better condition than usually found. Quite clean internally. Very good. One of 300 copies printed by the Grabhorn Press for the Book Club of California, and generally considered to be one of the masterpieces of Grabhorn printing. Published at the outset of the Great Depression, and priced thirty dollars, it took several years to sell the full edition. This copy is complete with all text pages and illustrations; we have seen a few copies that lack pages 133-34 and 139-40, likely an error made in the binding process. Powell's extensive and detailed diary (which was owned by the Grabhorns themselves) is one of the few California Gold Rush narratives to follow the southern route, going over the Santa Fe Trail through New Mexico and Arizona. It took Powell eight months to travel from Independence, Missouri to San Diego (still far from the mining regions). His journal then records his sojourn in the mines, his unhappy experiences at mining, and his other jobs in California. "One of the most thorough and articulate records of [the southern] route, and an absorbing account of [Powell's] subsequent adventures in California" - Zamorano Select. A talented copyist and sketcher, several of Powell's illustrations are included in the text, as plates and in-text illustrations. The text was edited by Douglas Watson. "A vivid day-by-day account, supplemented by the author's drawings which are reproduced in the exact size of the originals. The journal is a genuine contribution to the historical annals of the West" - Hundredth Book. An important modern overland and fine press classic. RITTENHOUSE 471. GRAFF 3334. HILL 1379. STREETER SALE 3229. MINTZ 592. KURUTZ 515. HOWES P525, "b." EBERSTADT 137:517. GRABHORN BIBLIOGRAPHY 158. ZAMORANO SELECT 90. REESE, BEST OF THE WEST 243. BOOK CLUB OF CALIFORNIA, HUNDREDTH BOOK 41.
Old, R.O.
64pp. plus folding frontispiece map. Original printed wrappers. Wrappers lightly worn and soiled. Text lightly tanned and creased, blue pencil mark on margin of p.54. Very good. A rare Colorado promotional pamphlet, issued by the British and Colorado Mining Bureau. The author's objective was to attract British capitalists and tourists to Colorado, so that "the splendid promise of her future" might blossom. Includes descriptive sections about Colorado counties, as well as advice on traveling from England to America, with a folding map of Colorado and an extensive catalogue of the mines operating at the time. The final leaf contains an abbreviated business directory of Denver, Central City, Black Hawk, and Georgetown. The preface is signed April, 1869, and an advertisement on the verso of the titlepage encourages the use of the Union Pacific Railroad, which would joint with the Central Pacific in late May, 1869, described as the "shortest route to the Mines, Salt Lake, California, and all the Western States and Territories." A second edition was issued in 1872. This title was issued in a cloth binding and in wrappers (as here). This is only the second copy in wrappers that we have handled. WYNAR 3313. HOWES O58, "aa." GRAFF 3084. SABIN 57110. BRADFORD 4076. LINGENFELTER CO:2345.
[San Francisco Earthquake and Fire]: [Hughes, William H.]
Twenty-nine loose silver albumen prints, twenty-four measuring 6½ x 4¾ inches; five prints measuring 6¾ x 4¾ inches. Some light wrinkling from handling. Faint toning to the edges and a stain on the verso of one print (not affecting the image). Very good. Housed in a modern binder. A remarkable collection of photographs taken immediately after the San Francisco earthquake and fires of April, 1906, showing the scope of the damage to the city, as well as providing a stark reminder of the human toll taken by what is considered one of the worst natural disasters in American history. Many of these images are apparently unpublished, having been produced by an Army engineer and used to accompany a report on earthquake relief efforts made for the United States Senate. Although there was a quick and immediate response from San Francisco's large military population, the earthquake and fires killed an estimated 3,000 people and left over 200,000 San Francisco residents homeless. Fifteen of the twenty-nine images in this collection are signed in the negative "Hughes Fort Mason" or simply "Hughes," and were almost certainly taken by Private William H. Hughes, a member of the First Battalion, Corps of Engineers stationed at Fort Mason, located on the bay at the northern edge of San Francisco. The other fourteen are not signed by a photographer, but some of them may have also been taken by Hughes. Troops from Fort Mason were the first military units to respond following the earthquake of April 18, 1906. There was no photography studio at Fort Mason in 1906, but Private Hughes was acknowledged as being "a very efficient photographer" for John Steven Sewell's report on the 1906 disaster, "The Effects of the Earthquake and Fire on Buildings, Engineering Structures, and Structural Materials" for the United States Geologic Survey. Many of Hughes' photographs from the present series accompany the Army's report to the U.S. Senate on earthquake and fire relief efforts, now housed with the records of the United States Senate in the National Archives. Since many of the images in this series were taken for the relief effort report to the Senate, there is a focus on the human aspect of the disaster. As far as we know, Hughes' photographs were not published except in conjunction with the Army report to the Senate. The photographs in the present collection include an image of members of San Francisco's business community, dressed in suits, bowler hats and patent leather shoes, helping to haul a fire hose close to an active fire; a small group of people viewing the devastation following the quake and during the fire; San Francisco residents cooking in the street and queuing for food and bedding; and a panoramic view of the of a San Francisco refugee camp near Fort Mason showing some refugees just starting to set up their tents. There are also two images showing the tragic loss of life during this disaster - one deceased man pinned upside down in a pile of rubble, and another, within a panoramic view of city-wide devastation, pinned by a massive beam in the basement of what was likely his home. This collection of original photographs shows the devastation and the very human tragedy left in the wake of the San Francisco earthquake and fire, with four of the photographs showing the fire in progress, and two showing the loss of men killed by the rubble in which they were trapped. Fifteen of the photographs carry the imprint "Hughes" or "Hughes Fort Mason" in the negative (those that do not are numbers 3, 4, 5, 9, 13, 14, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, and 29 below). The photographs included in this collection are captioned as follows (captions in the negatives are given within quotes; those without captions, have our descriptive caption provided): 1) "52 Union St." [remaining caption is indecipherable]. Image of severe ground upheaval on Union Street, with cable car tracks lifted above ground level, the brick street sinking and concrete sidewalks shattered. Pedestrians walk in the street and children sit on the cable-car tracks dangling their feet in the deep crevices alongside. 2) "53 Birds-eye view of camp around Fort Mason." A hilltop view of the tent city in the open areas that surround Fort mason on the left. 3) "54" A long line of men, women and children along a fence in a residential neighborhood are lined up to receive canned goods from the military. 4) "55" A group of men near a crumbling building receive tents and mattresses. 5) "56" Twenty men in suits, patent leather shoes and bowler hats shoulder a fire hose, and walk toward burning Victorian row houses in the distance. 6) "62" Men in bowler hats and suits picking through the rubble in the foreground with the hulking remains of shattered buildings rising through smoke in the background. A uniformed soldier stands in the corner right. An almost identical picture signed by Hughes Fort Mason is in the National Archives collection, captioned by the Archives as "No. 63. Souvenir hunters." 7) "67" Sailors disembark and march off the marina boardwalk in front of the ferry, "Garden City" packed with passengers. 8) "68" Women and men crowd together at the top of a hill viewing the ruins of their devastated city shrouded in billowing smoke before them. The identical picture signed by Hughes is in the National Archives collection, captioned by the archives as "Fire partially under control - 3rd day." 9) "69" Shows the front of two Victorian row houses on Howard Street sinking into the ground as a result of liquefaction of alluvial soil. 10) "70 Cooking in Street after Earthquake." Families on either side of a woman cooking on a cast iron stove on a residential street lined with Victorian row houses. The identical picture signed by Hughes Fort Mason is in the National Archives collection, captioned by the archives as "Chimneys were destroyed and cooking in houses was prohibited." 11) "71" Two members of the military stand on a corner next to the remains of a blasted church.
[Oklahoma Photographica]: Forbes, Andrew Alexander: Prettyman, William S.
Seventeen silver gelatin prints, 6 x 4 inches (15¼ x 10 cm) each, mounted on 9 x 7-inch (22¾ x 17¾ cm) embossed card stock. Each image captioned in the negative. Card stock rubbed and occasionally chipped at corners. One mount with the upper outer corner chipped, but not affecting photograph. Some occasional fading around the edge of an image, but overall the images with very good tonality. Very good plus. A significant grouping of exceptionally scarce silver gelatin photographs taken before, during and after the 1893 Cherokee Strip Land Rush in present-day Oklahoma. This collection is contains the work of two well-known Western photographers, A.A. Forbes and W.S. Prettyman, as well as other unidentified photographers. The photographs here cover the full sweep of this important event from before the start of the rush all the way through its immediate aftermath and includes images of African-American and women participants. The photographs in this collection were taken between September 11 and 26, 1893, and include images of crowds gathering at the land offices in Orlando, Oklahoma Territory to register; the start of the rush as well as the moments just before and just after; group portraits that include African-American and women participants, and photographs of "Hell's Half Acre" - a tent city that included over 100 saloons and gambling establishments created on the day of the rush when 40,000 participants pitched their tents in what would become the town of Perry, Oklahoma. The Cherokee Strip opening was the fourth and largest of the five land runs sponsored by the Federal government in present-day Oklahoma between 1889 and 1905. The Cherokee Strip comprised nearly seven million acres in a 225-mile long by fifty-eight-mile wide piece of land next to the Oklahoma panhandle given to the Cherokee nation under the terms of the Treaty of New Echota (1835). When the majority of indigenous Americans sided with the Confederacy during the Civil War, they were treated as a "conquered province" during Reconstruction by Congress, and the Cherokee Nation was forced to sell the nearly seven million acres of the Cherokee Strip to the Federal Government for a mere $1.40 per acre. This land was opened up for settlement by President Grover Cleveland's Proclamation 360 issued on August 19, 1893: "Opening to Settlement Certain Lands Acquired from the Cherokee Nation of Indians, the Tonkaw Tribe of Indians, and the Pawnee Tribe of Indians." The proclamation specifically stated that "all the lands acquired from the Cherokee Nation of Indians.will at the hour of 12 o'clock noon (central standard time) on Saturday, the 16th day of the month of September, A.D. 1893, and not before, be opened to settlement." This set the stage for the largest land rush in Oklahoma history, when some 150,000 participants would race against each other to stake a claim to one of 42,000 parcels of land available for homesteading. Also included in Proclamation 360 was Secretary of the Interior Hoke Smith's proviso that nine "registration" booths were to be opened near the entrance points to the land race in both Oklahoma Territory and Kansas. Everyone who sought a claim had to first make several written declarations and obtain a certificate at a registration booth prior to the rush. The nine registration booths were understaffed and were open only ten hours a day for the five days before the Cherokee Strip was opened for the land rush. This resulted in tens of thousands of people gathering at the booths in lines often a mile long and four abreast, with some people holding their place in line for days without drinking water. A number of people died of sun stroke as a result, and Hoke Smith's registration booths soon became known as "Hoke Smith's Grand Farce." Those that sought to bypass registration by using counterfeit registrations, or who snuck out to stake a claim before the official start of the land run were called "Sooners" because they used any means necessary to obtain land sooner than those who followed the legal process. Those who patiently waited for the official start were called "Boomers" for the boom of the cannon used to signal the start of the land rush. Seth Humphrey, a participant in the race, described the start in a 1931 article in The Atlantic Monthly: "While we stood, numb with looking, the rifles snapped, and the line broke with a huge, crackling roar. That one thundering moment of horseflesh by the mile quivering in its first leap forward was a gift of the gods, and its like will never come again. The next instant we were in a crash of vehicles whizzing past us. It was like trying to see a hundred three-ring circuses at once; and it was over while the mind was reaching for the start. But between the crack of the rifles and the dip of the last lumbering prairie schooner over the hills there was begun, made, and finished a chapter by itself in racing history." President Cleveland's proclamation put no restrictions on the basis of sex except that a married woman had to forfeit her right to a claim to her husband, making this race very attractive to widowed or unmarried women participants. Further, there were no restrictions as to race, so this land run was also attractive to African-American homesteaders. The present collection contains images of both women and African Americans taking an active role in the events of the Cherokee Strip opening, with one photograph showing a woman in a bonnet in a small wagon urging her galloping horses up a hill during the opening, and in the same photograph, another woman working as part of a husband and wife team trying to keep the wagon cover from flying off as her husband gallops their team forward. Another image shows a single well-dressed woman with a large, beribboned hat off to one side in a group shot of male homesteaders. Multiple group photographs include male African-American participants, with one at a rail depot showing two young African Americans in action on the
[Evarts, Jeremiah]: [Hawaii]
67,[2]pp. Original printed wrappers. Spine mostly perished, lower half of rear wrapper lacking. "To be circulated" written in manuscript on front wrapper. Light foxing and soiling. Very good overall. Untrimmed. An interesting piece of early American Hawaiiana, responding to British criticisms of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions' (ABCFM) activities in the islands. "An important review of unfavourable published accounts on the American Protestant mission in Hawaii, principally those contained in the voyage of the HMS Blonde (1826). The author, Jeremiah Evarts (1781-1831), was one of the principal founders and the corresponding secretary (1821-31) of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.and thus had an intimate knowledge of the subject. The account of the Blonde, he asserts, was 'a booksellers' speculation prepared by another and unfriendly hand, from certain papers obtained from the chaplain of the Blonde.' Further, he remarks that the missionaries were treated with 'contempt and calumny'" - Forbes. The voyage of the Blonde under Captain George Anson Byron was undertaken in 1825 for the express purpose of returning the bodies of King Kamehameha II and Queen Kamamalu, both of whom had died of illness on an 1824 visit to London. An account of the journey was published in 1826 from the ship chaplain's journals; it focuses primarily on anthropological and scientific details, though the British author is none too kind to his American counterparts when they are encountered. In the present pamphlet, Evarts responds to accusations made in this account and especially to those made in a related article in the London Quarterly Review, which had particularly seized upon and magnified those anti-American sentiments. This work is an expanded version of an article published in The North American Review in 1828, with additional content and updated evidence. In particular, the author declares that the supposed letter of "Boki," an island chief who accused Hiram Bingham of "trieng evere thing in his pour to have the Law of this country in his own hands," to be an outright forgery. Beyond his connection with the ABCFM, Evarts was a leading opponent of the Indian Removal Act who worked tirelessly, if unsuccessfully, to resist removal through all of the religious and legal means at his disposal. The rear wrapper of this copy, containing a "Postscript" on recto and verso, is lacking the lower half, which is provided in photocopy. A noteworthy early defense of American involvement in Hawaii, and quite scarce in the trade - Rare Book Hub records only one copy at auction in the last century. FORBES 660. SABIN 23351. AMERICAN IMPRINTS 28813.
Austin, Mary
xi,[5],281pp., including marginal vignettes interspersed throughout and three half-tone plates. Frontispiece. Half title. Original olive cloth with a design in green, gray, black and gilt by Adrian Iorio. Spine gilt, t.e.g. Faint rubbing to the corners, otherwise a fine copy. In the original brown paper pictorial dust jacket (in near fine condition, with small chips at corners of the spine fold). First edition, first issue, in the very scarce dust jacket. This first issue, as identified by Tabor, has the half title text seven centimeters down from the top edge of the page, the marginal illustrations in dark brown, and the "Note on the Illustrations" tipped in as opposed to being integral. Mary Austin, a native of Illinois, settled in the Owens Valley with her husband, the manager of an irrigation project there. She began to write sketches of the region for several journals and in 1903 published The Land of Little Rain, her first book and a landmark in the literature of California, the desert, and Native American life in the Southwest. It is also a key book on the water history of California and the West. The illustrations by E. Boyd Smith are outstanding depictions of desert life. The attractive decorative binding (which was adapted for the dust jacket) was designed by Adrian Iorio. Copies in the dust jacket - particularly lovely in this example - are exceedingly scarce. This copy of the dust jacket is a variant with an advertisement on the rear panel for John Muir's OUR NATIONAL PARKS, issued by Houghton Mifflin in 1901. The advertisement is surrounded by five concentric single rule panels in the same dark brown ink used to print the rest of the dust jacket. This is the first time we have seen a first edition, first issue dust jacket with any printing on the rear panel. "Surely no one will urge denial to the assertion that The Land of Little Rain ranks among the all-time great books on California, and is an acknowledged classic of the desert" - Edwards. "These charming sketches of the desert and semi-desert country comprising the Owens Valley and the approaches to the great sink of Death Valley have become practically a classic" - Zamorano 80. ZAMORANO 80, 2. COWAN, p.24. DYKES, FIFTY GREAT WESTERN ILLUSTRATORS (SMITH) 29. EDWARDS, p.14. GRAFF 114. GRAFF 114. HOWELL 50:273. HOWES A400. HOWES A400. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, CALIFORNIA CENTENNIAL 278. NORRIS CATALOGUE 155. STREETER SALE 3029. POWELL, CALIFORNIA CLASSICS, pp.44-52. ENDURING DESERT, p.14. DESERT VOICES, p.8. REESE, BEST OF THE WEST 232. ROCQ 2232. STREETER SALE 3029. Stephen A. Tabor, "The Hidden Second Printing of Austin's LAND OF LITTLE RAIN" in PAPERS OF THE BIBLIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA 77:4 (1983), pp.468-69.
[Nevada Directory]: [Fulton, Robert L., editor]: [Driggs, Edwin, compiler]
163pp. (endpapers and pastedowns included in pagination), advertisements throughout. Original printed green paper boards, expertly rebacked in dark blue morocco, spine gilt. Printed on newsprint and tanned throughout, a few leaves with a bit of edge wear. Very good. A very rare directory of Lake Tahoe and the Truckee region, thought for a time to be the first of the area, though that distinction is now accorded to W.F. EDWARDS' TOURISTS' GUIDE AND DIRECTORY OF THE TRUCKEE BASIN, published in Truckee the year before. Streeter describes the Edwards guide as "much more common" than the present directory. Quebedeaux does call this directory, compiled by Edwin Driggs and edited by Robert L. Fulton, "the first directory of the Lake Tahoe Resort area" and the second book printed in Reno, preceded only by a brand book published earlier the same year. When this directory was published it was described by the Nevada State Journal of Reno as "quite elaborate and exceedingly comprehensive" (as quoted in Armstrong). Indeed, it lists twenty communities and camps (including lumber, ice, and railroad camps) in Nevada and California: Boca, Bronco, Camp 23, Camp 24, Camp 25, Clinton, Cuba, Essex, Lake Tahoe, Tahoe City, Tahoe Hot Springs, Incline Crystal Bay, Glenbrook, Rowland's, Tallac, Sugar Pine Point, Reno, Truckee, Verdi, and Wadsworth. The addresses of businesses, residents, organizations, and government offices are given, and occupations are often noted for the men and women listed. More than seventy advertisements appear - on the boards, pastedowns, and throughout the text; notably, Benton's Stage Line is not among them. Steamboat Hot Springs is represented by a full-page advertisement, though is not included in the directory portion. Armstrong notes that this directory was initially published at two dollars a copy, but that within a few months the price had been cut in half. Perhaps the poor sales account in part for its rarity, as well as the fact that it was printed on poor quality newsprint, at the Reno Evening Gazette. The American Imprints Inventory for Nevada lists only the copy at the Huntington Library. Quebedeaux and Armstrong add copies at the California State Library, Society of California Pioneers, Nevada Historical Society, Nevada State Musuem, the Washoe County Library, University of Reno, and a copy in a private collection (almost certainly the present copy). A copy offered at Anderson Galleries in 1918 described it as "the rarest California item extant," and Quebedeaux calls this directory "very rare." Thomas W. Streeter acquired his copy from Edwin Grabhorn in 1936 at a cost of $10, and it sold for $700 at the Streeter sale in 1968. This is the first copy we have handled, and the first copy that we know of in the market since the Streeter copy. QUEBEDEAUX 151. ARMSTRONG 1681. HOWES F415, "aa." PAHER 647. AII (NEVADA) 294. ROCQ 6260. STREETER SALE 2361.
[Higgins, Jesse]
96pp. Contemporary plain brown wrappers. Wrappers a bit edgeworn and soiled, chipped at spine ends. Text tanned and foxed. Good. Untrimmed. Second edition of this popular tract, printed the same year as the first, variously attributed to William Duane, Jesse Higgins, or William Sampson. Originally appearing as a series of essays, the anonymous author seeks to bring justice down to the level of the common man and argues in favor of quick arbitration. The preface states: "My intention in this work, is to expose to full view the prodigious evil of our jurisprudence, to shew the absurdity of common law, and to suggest a competent remedy for that evil by a reform." For conclusive attribution to Jesse Higgins, see "Memoirs of a senator from Pennsylvania, Jonathan Roberts, 1771-1854" in the PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINe of HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY, vol. 62 (April 1938), pp.213-223, and J. Thomas Scharf's HISTORY OF DELAWARE, 1609-1888 (1888), pp.959-960. Higgins was a member of the Delaware Assembly who fought diligently throughout his life in favor of making law simpler and more equitable, spurred on by his own unending legal complications in managing his grandfather's estate. His public and spirited denunciations of lawyers and lawsuits earned him some public favor as well as the ire of the Delaware bar, who contrived to extend his suits even further. "Unless the mode of deciding on matters of disputes is cheap, speedy, and safe," he writes in this essay, "it can never merit the title of JUSTICE, and insomuch as it departs from those requisites, it approaches INJUSTICE." GAINES 05-29. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 9307. SABIN 75924. COHEN 1014 (1st ed). G.S. Rowe, "Jesse Higgins and the Failure of Legal Reform in Delaware, 1800-1810" in THE JOURNAL OF THE EARLY REPUBLIC, Vol. 3, No. 1, pp.17-43.
Shaw, R.C.
200pp., plus frontis. Original brown cloth, gilt. Corners and edges rubbed and worn, head of spine chipped, cloth stained. Contemporary ink stamps and signed "R.C. Shaw" in ink on front free endpaper. Faint tideline along outer edge of last fifteen leaves and pastedown. Good. Shaw was a member of the Granite State and California Mining and Trading Company, and here narrates the story of his overland trek from Massachusetts to California in 1849 along the Platte River route. "After an extraordinarily difficult journey, marked by Indian troubles and cholera, the men arrived at Sutter's Fort on September 6" - Kurutz. The final chapter relates some of Shaw's mining experiences around Weber Creek. While Shaw is fond of providing specific dates and vivid descriptions of landscapes, the clear discrepancies between his account and accounts from his travelling companions reveal his memory to be spotty at best. Mintz nevertheless notes that "Shaw's book offers a good picture of the hardships suffered." HOWES S349, "aa." MINTZ 420. COWAN, p.580. GRAFF 3744. MORGAN, PRITCHARD 180. KURUTZ 571. HOWELL 50:835. MATTES 621 (ref). EBERSTADT 107:354.
Coulter, E. Merton
[xii],468pp., including maps. Original red cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. Corners and spine ends rubbed. Internally clean. Very good in original dust jacket (chipped and torn, upper third of backstrip missing). E. Merton Coulter was a professor of history at the University of Georgia, a founding member of the Southern Historical Association, and editor of the Georgia Historical Quarterly. In the present work he traces the history of this southern border state from its initial position of neutrality, through the war and Kentuckians' mounting list of grievances against the Union, to its ultimate opposition to Reconstruction. Seeking an explanation as to why "Kentucky has pursued a more remarkable and enigmatical course than any of her sisters," Coulter argues that it was because of Kentucky's "individuality," concluding that "Kentuckians were simply different. They got into the war in their own way, fought it in their own way, and came out of it in their own way." Coulter has come to be associated with the Dunning School of historiography and what historians generally characterize as its racist defense of Southern secession and opposition to Reconstruction, though Coulter himself studied at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and not at Columbia with William A. Dunning. In his Black Reconstruction in America, W.E.B. Du Bois listed the book under the heading "Standard - Anti-Negro," explaining that "These authors believe the Negro to be sub-human and congenitally unfitted for citizenship and the suffrage." But despite being "seriously flawed and obviously dated," Coulter's study of the Civil War and Reconstruction in Kentucky is still "one of the most durable works in the field," writes historian John David Smith. "A good account of the history and character of this key border state; embraces all facets of life there." - Nevins. NEVINS II, p.147. W. E. Burghardt Du Bois, Black Reconstruction: An Essay Toward a History of the Part Which Black Folk Played in the Attempt to Reconstruct Democracy in America, 1860-1880 (New York. 1935), p.731. John David Smith, "E. Merton Coulter, the 'Dunning School,' and The Civil War and Readjustment in Kentucky" in Register of the Kentucky Historical Society, Vol. 86, no. 1 (Winter 1988), pp.52-69.
[Civil War]
iv,292pp. Original publisher's black pebbled cloth, ruled in blind, front board and spine gilt. Worn at spine ends, edges, and corners. Closed tear in upper edge of titlepage, with crude tape repair to verso. Some internal soiling. Embossed stamp of Long Island Historical Society on title page and final leaf. About very good. The Southern Historical Society was founded in 1869 by former Confederate Major General Dabney Herndon Maury to preserve archival materials and documents relating to the Confederate States of America and the American Civil War. These documents were compiled and published in fifty-two volumes of the Southern Historical Society Papers between 1876 and 1959. This is volume six of the Papers. Contents include "General S.D. Lee's Report of the Battle of Chickasaw Bayou," "General Van Dorn's Report of the Elkhorn Campaign," an essay by J.L.M. Curry entitled "Did General Lee Violate his Oath in Siding with the Confederacy?," correspondence of Robert E. Lee, documents relating to "The Wounding of Stonewall Jackson," documents relating to the Battle of Gettysburg including the Count of Paris and General Early on "Relative Numbers at Gettysburg," documents on the Battle of the Wilderness, and "West Point and Secession" by Dabney H. Maury. Of particular interest is an extract from Private Carlton McCarthy's account of life as a soldier that deals specifically with the subject of "Cooking and Eating."
[Bible in German]: [Saur, Christopher]
[4],992,277,[3]pp. printed in double columns. Quarto. Contemporary calf over wooden boards, metal clasps lacking. Dampstaining and wear to edges of first and last few leaves. Some light soiling to text. Contemporary manuscript notations on endpapers. Very good to near fine. In a cloth box, gilt leather label. The second edition of the first European-language Bible printed in America, after the first of 1743, and the first Bible printed on paper made in America. The text is based on Martin Luther's version by way of the thirty-fourth edition of the Halle Bible, with Book Three of Edras, Book Four of Edras, and Book Three of Maccabees supplied from the Berlenburg Bible. The present edition, supposedly issued in 2000 copies, was printed by Christopher Saur II, son of Christopher Saur the elder, a native of Wittgenstein, Germany. The elder Saur emigrated to Germantown, Pennsylvania, working variously as a tailor, clockmaker, and healer before finally turning to printing and publishing. It was he who printed the 1743 first edition. When his father died in 1758, the younger Saur, who up until then had overseen the bindery and all English-language publications, inherited the business. Under his ownership, the business continued to thrive and expand, making him "one of the wealthiest men in British America" before seeing his fortunes reversed during the American Revolution (ANB). A member of the German Baptist Brethren, or Dunkards as they were popularly known, the younger Saur would publish a second (the present 1763 edition) and third (1776, the so-called "Gun-wad Bible") edition of his father's German Bible, and in 1773 he built a paper mill on the Schuylkill River. Next to the cost of labor, paper was easily the colonial printer's greatest expense. While the best paper used in colonial British North America had to be imported, there was always demand for the lower-grade printing paper used for the bread and butter of the printer's trade: newspapers, almanacs, pamphlets, and more ephemeral publications. Increasingly, such paper came to be supplied by a growing number of American paper mills, most of which were concentrated in Pennsylvania. It was on such American-made paper that Christopher Saur printed the second edition of this German-language Bible. In 1935, the watermarks on the paper of the Second Saur Bible were identified as those of William Parks, the Virginia printer and publisher of the Virginia Gazette who established a paper mill at Williamsburg in 1744. How paper bearing his watermark came to be used in the printing of the second edition of the Saur Bible remains something of a mystery. Parks died in 1750, some thirteen years prior to the publication of the second Saur Bible in 1763. After his death, his mill was sold to an unidentified buyer for £96, 3s, 9d, a sum substantial enough to suggest that the mill continued to produce paper. Examples of Parks' paper are notoriously difficult to identify. When folded in quarto, the watermarks tend to disappear into the folds, rendering them only partially visible. Although somewhat obscure, examples of the Parks watermark appear along the gutter of many leaves throughout this copy of the 1763 edition of the Saur Bible. A nice copy of a significant early American Bible. EVANS 9343. SABIN 5192. SEIDENSTICKER, p.61. ARNDT 269. O'CALLAGHAN, p.25. HILDEBURN 1877. WRIGHT, EARLY BIBLES, pp.28-54. RUMBALL-PETRE, RARE BIBLES 161. GERMANTOWN AND THE GERMANS, BIBLES: 5. Lawrence C. Wroth, The Colonial Printer (Charlottesville. 1964), p.135. Edwin A.R. Rumball-Petre, America's First Bibles with a Census of 555 Extant Bibles (Portland, Me. 1940), pp.38-50. Rutherfoord Goodwin, "The Williamsburg Paper Mill of William Parks the Printer" in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America Vol. 31, no. 1 (1937), pp.31-3, 39-44. Thomas L. Gravell and George Miller, A Catalogue of American Watermarks, 1690-1835 (New York. 1979), pp.150, 196-7. ESTC W18552. ANB 20, pp.400-1. DAB XVII, pp. 416-7. Isaiah Thomas, The History of Printing in America (New York. 1970), pp.408-417.
[Wadsworth, William Henry]
94pp. Original printed blue wrappers. Wrappers a bit worn, small tear to lower left corner of front wrapper and titlepage, several small holes in rear wrapper. Lightly tanned. Overall very good. The rare Spanish translation of Wadsworth's report responding to the claims of 366 Mexican citizens against the American government relating to trans-border depredations by "Apaches, Comanches, and other Indians" in the territory of the Gadsden Purchase. Together, the Mexican citizens sued the United States for a total of over thirty million dollars for damages to self and property incurred between 1848 and 1853. Wadsworth flatly rejects their claims on a number of grounds. Fundamentally, he states that "1st. It does not appear that the claimants were injured or harmed 'on authority of the United States.' 2nd. The claims of the claimants, which the Mexican government currently asserts, were settled by the two governments by virtue of the treaty which they agreed to on the 30th of December, 1853 [i.e. the Gadsden Purchase]" (our translation). A large part of Wadsworth's argument hangs on the second point, and he dives deep into the semantics and linguistic details of both the Spanish and English versions of the Gadsden Purchase Treaty, which explicitly absolved the United States of all responsibility for the territory imposed by the 1831 and 1848 treaties. This reading is supported personally by Gadsden, who is quoted to the effect that, even if it is accepted that the United States should police the border, the Mexican government's protests against any troop movements in the lawfully ceded territory "fully justify the assertion that the responsibility for the.success of the stipulation for containing the Indians within American territory, falls on the Mexican government and not on that of the United States." By way of a brief summary of Spanish colonization of the new world, Wadsworth also argues that the current conflict arises from "the moral effects of a savage war that has lasted centuries without its horrors being mitigated by the influences of civilization" (i.e. between Spanish colonists and Native Americans), and that expecting the United States to suddenly resolve centuries of fighting after the Mexican-American War would be foolish. Quite a scarce report. Rare Book Hub records only one other copy, offered by Dorothy Sloan in 1988, and OCLC records only twelve in the United States. It does not appear that an English version of this report was ever separately published. A valuable look at the complicated sociopolitical and legal aftermath of the Mexican-American War and the Gadsden Purchase, with much detail on early Mexican and American attempts to determine responsibility for regulating the wide and permeable border which separates them. PALAU 373432. OCLC 3336180.
[Bermuda]: Lusher, N.E.
Sixteen leaves, containing thirty-one mounted photographs, each approximately 7 x 9 inches. Oblong folio. Contemporary black cloth, neatly rebacked and recornered in contemporary black morocco, gilt. Light wear and soiling to cards. Images generally crisp and clean. Very good plus. A handsome 19th-century photo album which includes the work of one of the great photographers of Bermuda. Three of the images have been definitely attributed to N.E. Lusher - the first, showing the construction of a gangway to a docked vessel at St. Georges; the eighth image, showing a shaded crossroads; and the charming ninth image of a Black woman and a young boy seated in a donkey cart. The remainder of the album includes a number of images of Bermuda subjects which are of a similarly high quality which suggest that they are all the work of Lusher. Lusher apparently worked as a professional photographer from 1882 onwards, and is known for a wide range of work. His success more or less tied in with the explosion of tourism to the island that followed the first visit of Princess Louise to Bermuda in 1883. The images in the present album offer a good selection of the best of his work. They range from the reportage of the dock scenes, to the topographical images of the lighthouse and other island locations, to the true art of landscape photography, to the whimsy of images which feature the local inhabitants. Eighteen of the photographs have been identified as images of Bermuda, while the remainder show unidentified American coastal towns, possibly Nova Scotia, including an image of a coastal fortification, possibly in Halifax. The Bermuda images include a view of the docks at St. George's; a view of the town of St. George's; a stone quarry; royal palms on the road to Paget; a donkey cart; Gibb's Hill Lighthouse; a field of Easter lilies; and stalactites, possibly in the Crystal Cave.
[Catlin, George]
Steel engraving, 16½ x 21 inches. Minor edge wear and marginal soiling. Image clean and bright. Very good. Archivally matted and protected with mylar sheet. A steel engraving by John Sartain of a handsome portrait of John Randolph of Roanoke, after the original done by George Catlin in 1831. He was a strong supporter of limited federal power and greater authority to the individual states, as well as a narrow reading of the Constitution. Randolph, a patriotic if not myopic defender of states' rights, served in Congress from 1800 to 1825. He was well known for a particularly Virginian slice of bombast. "I am an aristocrat," he said, "I love liberty, I hate equality." Despite such sentiments, Randolph approached politics as an exercise in personal virtue and was often at odds with his more pragmatic contemporaries (such as James Madison). Catlin's immeasurable skill and sensitivities are on full display in this lovely portrait, beautifully engraved by Sartain. ANB 18, p.130.
[Pike, Zebulon]
3,[1]pp., on a folded quarto sheet. Neat repairs to two closed tears at gutter, light foxing. Very good. A report made on March 9, 1808 regarding if and how to compensate Zebulon Pike for his explorations of the Mississippi River (see Howes P372). The document prints a letter of praise from Henry Dearborn to Pike congratulating Pike on his endeavors, and includes the curious mention of one Joseph Ballenger. Ballenger was a sometime companion of Pike who left the expedition to pursue a "Spanish project," but the committee purposefully omits who hired Ballenger and what his task was. Given that General Wilkinson had written Pike's instructions himself, and given Wilkinson's association with Aaron Burr's own Spanish project, Ballenger's errand into the wilderness is doubly suspect. An attractive Pike item, and quite rare. GOODSPEED 417-432. BRAISLIN 1472. SHAW & SHOEMAKER 16557.
Jarves, James Jackson
242pp. printed in two columns and including in-text illustrations, plus 18pp. of printed advertisements. Photographic frontis. Half title. Original half calf and pebbled cloth, spine gilt. Boards slightly rubbed and stained, spine leather cracked. Light scattered foxing and edge wear. Very good. "The fourth, revised, edition of Jarves' HISTORY, first published in 1843 in Boston.and London.This is the second edition to be printed and published in Honolulu and is interesting for its early use of an albumen photograph of Kamehameha V added as a frontispiece. All copies have the frontispiece leaf with a rule border and title printed below.but not all copies have the actual photograph added" - Forbes. In addition to the new frontispiece, this revised edition of Jarves' seminal work adds an appendix, written by the publisher Henry M. Whitney, which presents details and statistics of the Hawaiian Islands at the time of publication, along with a "Historical Sketch of Hawaiian Volcanoes" and several pages of tables presenting the results of the 1866 census. Though completely reorganized to be printed in two columns, many of the illustrations from the first edition have been maintained in the new layout. In the rear of the volume are eighteen pages of printed advertisements for Hawaiian businesses, including one for the book and stationery shop of Thomas Thrum, who eventually bought the remainder of this edition and reissued it in the 1880s without the frontispiece photograph or printed ads. FORBES 2957.
Fogg, William Perry
[12],[7]-237pp. plus frontispiece portrait and twenty-eight photographic plates. Original three-quarter calf and pebbled cloth, spine and boards gilt, gilt-stamped globe on front board. Binding rubbed and scuffed, particularly to corners and joints. Light soiling and foxing, occasional small marginal tears or flaws. One leaf of table of contents loosely laid in. Author's presentation inscription on titlepage and pencil corrections throughout. Very good overall. A presentation copy of this remarkable, world-spanning journey, privately printed for the author, William Perry Fogg, and with his pencil annotations and corrections. Though published the same year as Jules Verne's fictional Around the World in 80 Days (whose protagonist was named after this work's author), William Perry Fogg's incredible journey actually took place. The text is printed from the original newspaper articles which Fogg wrote for the CLEVELAND LEADER. It is printed in single newspaper column format, and each chapter was printed at about the same time as the original article, from the same typesetting (including the original datelines and typographical errors, carefully corrected by the author in pencil). The work is illustrated by over two dozen photographic plates, many of them original albumen photographic images, the others photographic reproductions of printed plates. The original photographic images include a Chinese village, groups of women and samurai, the famous Kamakura Daibutsu statue, Singapore, and the harbor of Hong Kong. Copies of Fogg's book are found with a widely varying number of plates - this copy has among the largest number we have seen. Fogg travelled by train from Cleveland to Salt Lake City, where he interviewed Brigham Young, described the Mormon sights, and then went on to San Francisco. He steamed across the Pacific to Japan, then visited China, India, and Egypt. Most of the text consists of his lively descriptions of these far-flung locales, and includes an account of the recently completed Suez Canal. The book ends with Fogg visiting Cairo; the author later published a second book recounting his experiences in the rest of Egypt and the Middle East. True to his introduction, which states that the volume was "not published in its present form for public sale, but designed as a souvenir to personal friends," this copy was presented by Fogg to Cleveland businessman George O. Baslington. Though no world traveler, Baslington had an eventful 1872 himself - beginning in February of that year, the formerly quite successful oil firm of Hanna, Baslington & Company was bullied into submission and ultimately bought out by Rockefeller's Standard Oil for less than half of its estimated value. An unusual, well-illustrated publication describing a grand voyage, presented by the author, featuring his textual corrections, and with more plates than are usually found. FOGG 3382a. SMITH, TRAVELLERS F45.
Garcilaso de la Vega, "El Inca": Rycaut, Paul, translator
[8],1019 [i.e. 1015],[9]pp., without pages numbered 23-26, as issued; plus frontispiece portrait and ten plates (one folding). Titlepage printed in red and black. Folio. Antique-style paneled calf, spine gilt, leather label. Scattered foxing, several small holes occasionally touching a letter without significant loss, one in the plate opposite p.456. Very good. Garcilaso de la Vega's major work, the source from which all later writers on the subject have drawn. It consists of two parts, the first describing the origins, religion, laws, and many other details regarding the Incan empire and policies before the invasion by the Spanish. The second part describes the conquest by the Spanish. The engravings provide a vivid picture of the brutal life of the period in Peru and of the conquest. Garcilaso de la Vega, "El Inca," a distinguished 16th-century mestizo Peruvian and a descendant of the Spanish poet of the same name, was born in Peru and spent his formative years there, living out his later life in Spain. Garcilaso's contemporary record of the early Spanish period in Peru is most valuable, as it is based on eyewitness testimony and personal observation. This is the first English language edition, translated by Paul Rycaut, whose portrait appears as the frontispiece. Several variants of this edition were printed in 1688 by Miles Flesher, each with a different publisher imprint. "The most valuable contemporary source of early Peruvian history" - Hill. WING G214. ESTC R34862. SABIN 98760. EUROPEAN AMERICANA 688/104. PALAU 354799. HILL 676.
DeWees, W. B.: Cardelle, Cara [pseudonym for Emmaretta Cara Kimball Crawford], compiler
viii,312pp. plus four plates. 12mo. Original blindstamped green cloth, spine gilt. Spine ends chipped, extremities moderately rubbed. Old tideline in bottom margin of maps and plate, scattered soiling. Textblock over-opened at p.232. Tideline on endpapers, rear free endpaper missing. Red pencil ownership and date on title page. Good. The second and best edition of William DeWees' pioneering experiences in colonial Texas, including four plates not found in the 1852 first edition. DeWees' reminiscences include a narrative of his travels in Texas and Mexico, the founding of the town of Columbus, early Texan colonial government, wars with Native Americans, and a valuable eyewitness account of the "Runaway Scrape" that occurred during the Texas Revolution. William Bluford DeWees (1799-1878) a blacksmith and trader, was an early Texas settler who was one of the Austin colony's "Old Three Hundred" - settlers who were part of the first and largest Anglo-American settlement in Mexican Texas. DeWees obtained land near the Colorado River and eventually became a founder and developer of Columbus, Texas. Later he held a series of public offices in Colorado County, including justice of the peace, associate land commissioner, associate justice of the county court, and county treasurer, but was charged with misappropriation of county funds. Letters from an Early Settler of Texas includes a plate of the death of Davy Crockett at the Alamo, the "The Battle of Gonzales," and two important battles between white settlers and the native peoples of the region: "The Battle with the Whacos" and "The Battle of Skull Creek" where fourteen Karankawa were massacred by white settlers in retaliation for the ambush death of three colonists. Of great importance within the text is an eyewitness account of the "Runaway Scrape," the contemporary name given to the flight of Texan settlers to the east following the loss of the Alamo. The advance of Santa Anna's troops caused panicked Texas settlers to flee eastward without any thought as to preparation or even to transportation - many simply walked while carrying a few belongings. As a result, many of the settlers fleeing Santa Anna's forces died from disease, starvation and exposure. Their flight continued from March through April of 1836, when the news of Santa Anna's defeat at the Battle of San Jacinto spread and the settlers eventually traveled back to their homesteads. Although Letters from an Early Settler of Texas is presented as a compilation of DeWees' letters to a friend in Kentucky, the book is in reality a volume of DeWees' reminiscences of his experiences as told to writer Emmaretta Cara Kimball Crawford, who took the pseudonym Cara Cardelle. "A valuable first hand source book for the early days of Texas and the Southwest" - Eberstadt. "Unembellished pictures of the journey to Texas, personal incidents and facts and events in Texas development" - Clark. This important narrative of the early settlement of Texas and its eyewitness accounts of events during the Texas Revolution is scarce in either edition. OCLC locates only three copies of this second edition, at Harvard, Brigham Young University, and the California State Library. FIELD 422. ADAMS, HERD 671. HOWES D299. RADER 1131. RAINES, p.67. CLARK, OLD SOUTH III:298. OCLC 1032667903, 58940000. EBERSTADT 110:252.
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