L. W. Currey, Inc.

FOUNTAIN, PAUL. The great deserts and forests of North America[.] By Paul Fountain[.] With a preface by W. H. Hudson, F.Z.S. London New York and Bombay: Longmans, Green, & Co. 39 Paternoster Row, 1901. 22.2x14 cm, pp. [i-iv] v-vii [viii] ix [x] [1] 2-295 [296: blank], original maroon cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, fore and bottom edges untrimmed. First edition. The first of the author's three books on North America. Paul Fountain (c. 1849-1924), British traveler, naturalist, trapper, peddler and author, spent many years exploring the Americas, especially the North American West. In the spring of 1875 he visited Yosemite Valley and the southern High Sierra. His impressions and observations of the region are found on pages 256-271. "I spent about six months exploring these mountains and in the Colorado Desert ... I paid particular attention to the natural history of this region, and for the benefit of those who delight in that branch of science I here give the principal items of my notes ..." (pp. 263-264). Many of Fountain's accounts of life (and death) on North America's western frontier are melodramatic (see R. A. Burchell, British Travellers Report on the White Conquest of the Trans-Mississippi West 1865-1905 [The British Library 1993]), but his notes on the wildlife he observed in the region are still important (see pages 265-271 for his account of animal life in and near a small lake in the southern High Sierra). Tear along outer front joint repaired, spine ends worn, corner tips a bit soft, a very good copy. (#166591).