L. W. Currey, Inc.

OLMSTED, FREDERICK LAW. Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove: A preliminary report, 1865 [by] Frederick Law Olmsted. Introduction by Victoria Post Ranney. Illustrated by Wayne Thiebaud. Yosemite National Park: Yosemite Association, [1993]. 23 cm, pp. [i-vii], viii-xx [xxi-xxii] [1] 2-32 [33: colophon] [34: blank], 3 illustrations, cloth-backed boards, printed label. First edition in book form. Limited to 450 numbered copies, this being one of the 350 unsigned copies. Provides the text of Olmsted's recommendations for the management of the Yosemite Grant which he presented at a meeting of the Commissioners in Yosemite Valley on August 8, 1865. The report was not printed at the time and it may have been suppressed by those opposing Olmsted's views. A fragment of the report was published in the New York Evening Post in 1868 and quotations identified as taken from it appeared in the San Francisco Examiner in 1889, but the full text was not revealed until 1952 when a diligent search of the Olmsted office turned up a nearly complete holograph copy of the document. Most of the missing text had been printed in the Evening Post and thus reconstructed, all but a few lines are extant. While Olmsted proposed the construction of roads and trails to accommodate visitors, most of his recommendations were strongly preservationist in nature. He advocated the preservation of the trees and other vegetation in a natural state and stressed that the accommodation of visitors was to be encouraged, but should not impair the rights of future generations to view the park in its natural state. In short, Olmsted advanced a very modern philosophy of park management. He asked for an appropriation of $37,000 of which $25,000 was budgeted for the construction of a road into the Valley. Ironically, this may have been the most unacceptable proposal in the report as there were those who feared that the money might come at the expense of the Geological Survey. For a detailed study of Olmsted's life and career, see Laura Wood Roper, FLO: A Bibliography of Frederick Law Olmsted (1973). This 1993 edition, limited to 450 numbered copies, is first separate book edition. It was preceded by an offprint from Landscape Architecture, Vol. XLIII, No. 1, October 1952 where the entire text appeared in print for the first time. The text of this 1993 edition appears, with notes and additional background material in The papers of Frederick Law Olmstead, Volume Five: The California Years, 1863-1865, edited by Victoria Post Ranney, pages 488-516. A fine copy without dust jacket as issued. Publisher's prospectus laid in. (#139008).