$240
Letts, John M. (fl. circa 1850) California Illustrated: including a Description of the Panama and Nicaragua Routes by a Returned Californian . New York: Holdredge, 1852. First edition, octavo, illustrated with forty-eight lithographs with tinted backgrounds based on drawings by George V. Cooper (Letts's traveling companion) and transferred to the lithography stones by J. Cameron, in red publisher's cloth, blocked in ornate gilt stamped compartments, with the figure of the prospector on both boards, a.e.g., professionally rebacked, the original spine lost, 9 x 5 1/2 in. "Cooper has left us a pungent, graphic record of the long trip to and from the gold fields, of the young cities he found mushrooming there, of booming San Francisco and Sacramento, of the lovely vestiges of the mission-founding padres in early California, and of the actual life of the Forty-niners, with its flavor of roughing it, humor, hope, and all the luring magic of the yellow streak.' (Peters, California on Stone , pps. 103-105.)
Auctioneer:
Skinner
Date:
2013-11-17
