L. W. Currey, Inc.

Bierce, Ambrose. NUGGETS AND DUST PANNED OUT IN CALIFORNIA by Dod Grile [pseudonym]. Collected and Loosely Arranged by J. Milton Sloluck [pseudonym]. London: Chatto and Windus, Publishers. (Successors to John Camden Hotten.), n.d. [1873]. Small octavo, pp. [i-iv] [i-v] vi [vii] viii [9] 10-175 [176: blank] [1-8: ads dated 1873], true endpapers at rear imprinted with publisher's ads, original pictorial yellow wrappers printed in black, red and blue, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. First edition. The author's second book. A collection of stories, sketches, epigrams, quips and witticisms. In general the seventeen very short stories, grouped together as "Crazy Tales," are satirical; revenge and death are frequent themes. Bierce's first short story, "The Haunted Valley," was published in the OVERLAND MONTHLY in 1871. "On Christmas Day of that year he married Mollie Day of San Francisco and several months later they went to England. During the next four years Bierce was on the staff of FUN... In 1872 he published, under the pseudonym of 'Dod Grile' and in confessed collaboration with Satan, THE FIEND'S DELIGHT, a 'cold collation of diabolisms,' and [in 1873] NUGGETS AND DUST PANNED OUT IN CALIFORNIA. Both books were collections of mordantly humorous sketches he had contributed to various California journals, while two years later a third volume, COBWEBS FROM AN EMPTY SKULL, containing many articles that first appeared in FUN, established the reputation of 'Bitter Bierce' as a vitriolic wit." - DAB. BAL 1099 (noted printing A with table of contents leaf; terminal endpaper b; no sequence established). Starrett 2. Topp, Victorian Yellowbacks & Paperbacks III, p. 33. Baird and Greenwood 251. Spine panel chipped and repaired, covers a bit creased and dusty, a few leaves dog-eared at corners, two leaves of ads roughly opened, a good copy of a fragile book which had no hardbound issue and has never been reprinted. Bierce's scarcest book. (#111843).

Price: $2,000.00