[Icarian Community]: [Cabet, Etienne]
COLONIE ICARIENNE AUX ÉTATS-UNIS D’AMÉRIQUE. SA CONSTITUTION, SES LOIS, SA SITUATION MATERIELLE ET MORALE APRES LE PREMIER SEMESTRE 1855
Chez l'Auteur, Paris: 1856
- $6,500
240pp. 12mo. Original printed brown wrappers, expertly rebacked in matching brown paper. Wrappers a bit soiled, worn at edges. Small tear in upper margin of p.239, neatly repaired and not affecting text. Quite clean internally, and in very good condition. Untrimmed and unopenend. A scarce French printing of the principles, history, laws, constitution, and status of the Icarian communities in the United States. Founded by Étienne Cabet, the Icarian Community was among the most interesting Utopian experiments in the United States during the 19th century. After an unsuccessful attempt to settle in Texas, the Icarians established themselves in Nauvoo, Illinois, an abandoned Mormon town. After Cabet's death in 1856, the group splintered, with some of the remaining Illinois group moving to Corning, Iowa. This volume, published in the year of Cabet's death, offers his description of the community and the principles of its founding and operation, as well as the laws and constitution that governed them. We find no copies at auction since the Streeter sale in 1969, where a copy in wrappers was purchased by H.P. Kraus for $160. SABIN 9779. HOWES C5, "aa." STREETER SALE 4267.
More from William Reese Company - Americana
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
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
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
[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
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
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 âFever' 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
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
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
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
COLONIE ICARIENNE AUX ÉTATS-UNIS D’AMÉRIQUE. SA CONSTITUTION, SES LOIS, SA SITUATION MATERIELLE ET MORALE APRES LE PREMIER SEMESTRE 1855: https://rarebookinsider.com/rare-books/colonie-icarienne-aux-etats-unis-damerique-sa-constitution-ses-lois-sa-situation-materielle-et-morale-apres-le-premier-semestre-1855/
