[Letts, John M.]:

$500 · Offered by William Reese Company · No longer available

CALIFORNIA ILLUSTRATED: INCLUDING A DESCRIPTION OF THE PANAMA AND NICARAGUA ROUTES. Later issue, styled "fourth thousand" on the titlepage. Howes states: "Number of plates vary in copies of all issued but 48 is the proper complement." A vivid narrative of California mining life, published at the height of the gold fever, and particularly valuable for the attractive, accurate illustrations drawn by Cooper and lithographed by Cameron. Peters remarks, "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." Cameron, the brilliant hunchback lithographer who was addicted to drink, deserves much of the credit for the Currier & Ives prints.

Found via Rare Books Intel, a search across rare-book dealers, auction houses and marketplaces worldwide.