FLIRTATION CAMP; OR, THE RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA: A SPORTING ROMANCE. By Theodore S. Van Dyke. New York: Fords, Howard, & Hulbert, 1881. 18.5x11.9 cm, pp. [1-8] [1] 2-299 [300], flyleaves at front and rear, original pictorial bevel-edged green cloth, front and spine panels stamped in gold, brown coated endpapers. First edition. Thinly fictionalized account of Van Dyke's hunting and fishing trips which Van Dyke called "a thread of romance on which are strung the pearls of sport and adventure ..." (page [22]). "Perhaps the ablest of the early writers to come because of ill-health was Theodore Strong Van Dyke (1840-1923) ... Coming to Southern California in 1875, he lived outdoors as much as he could in order to regain his strength, spending much of his time hunting and fishing in the country back of San Diego ... [An active member of the San Diego community] which he came to like in spite of the rawness of the social environment, he informed himself on the possibilities of irrigation, pioneered the building of the first big water project in San Diego County, the Cuyamaca flume, and wrote many articles for local newspapers and journals, such as THE GOLDEN ERA and THE LAND OF SUNSHINE, on the proper use of the land and the wise development of the southern communities. His books about the southland dealt with farming and with hunting. SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA presented facts quietly at the very threshold of the boom, and FLIRTATION CAMP; OR, THE RIFLE, ROD AND GUN IN CALIFORNIA offered a very thin coating of fiction to a pleasant account of hunting and outdoor living in the rolling hills near the Mexican border. Most important of his half-dozen volumes, however, is his MILLIONAIRES OF A DAY (1890), the best book that has been written about the great boom of the 'eighties" (Walker, Literary History of Southern California, p. 115-116). Cowan (1933), p. 655. Baird and Greenwood 2476. Riling 1095. Phillips 385. Wright (III) 5653. Cloth lightly worn at spine ends, corner tips rubbed, a tight, bright, very good copy. A lovely copy. (#166799).
Price: $100.00
No statement of printing.