Granite crags of California by C. F. Gordon Cumming ... New edition. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, MDCCCLXXXVI. 20.5 cm, pp. [i-v] vi-viii [ix-x] [1] 2-384, 5 inserted plates, 1 inserted map, original pictorial blue gray cloth, front panel stamped in white and black, spine panel stamped in gold, white endpapers, all edges untrimmed. "New edition," i.e. second printing, first issue. The text follows that of the 1884 printing, but three of the illustrations found in the 1884 printing are omitted. This is a first issue binding of the "new edition" with spine stamping in gold rather than the later black. Miss Gordon-Cumming traveled extensively throughout the world in the 1870s and 1880s. She was a keen observer and recorded her impressions in a series of lengthy letters to family and friends which were published in a series of books detailing her travels. In April 1878 she arrived in Yosemite Valley, where she intended to spend a few days. Upon reaching the valley she canceled the passage she had booked for Hawaii and remained in the Yosemite region for nearly three months. Here she painted, sketched, and wrote the lively, detailed letters which formed the nucleus of Granite Crags. She visited all accessible points of interest in and around the valley, including Glacier Point and Clouds Rest. Leaving the valley she traveled to the Calaveras big trees, where she visited both the north and south groves. The eight plates in the book reproduce water color sketches of Yosemite Valley by the author. Miss Gordon-Cumming summarized her California visit in Memories (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1904), pp. 230-31: "In California I found such attractive sketching-ground that six months slipped away like so many weeks, chiefly in the grand Sierra Nevada. I lived most of the time in the Yo Semite Valley, at the very foot of the stupendous falls (2630 feet in height), which give their name to the wonderful valley thence riding in every direction to paint the many other falls, and view the Sierras from various mountain summits." See Farquhar (1948), title 17. Currey and Kruska 128. Farquhar 17b. Slight spine lean, endpapers lightly tanned, a very good copy. Quite a nice copy overall. (#166037).
"NEW EDITION" on title page.