(#167297) Traveling alone. A woman's journey around the world. By Lilian Leland. LILIAN LELAND.
Traveling alone. A woman's journey around the world. By Lilian Leland.

Traveling alone. A woman's journey around the world. By Lilian Leland. New York: From the Press of John Polhemus, 102 Nassau Street. Trade supplied by the American News Company, 1890. 19.2x13 cm, pp. [i-iv] v-viii 1-358 [359-360: blank], inserted frontispiece (steel engraved portrait of the author), original brown cloth, front panel stamped in gold and blind, spine panel stamped in gold, rear panel stamped in blind, floral patterned endpapers. First edition. Published in 1890 as a 25¢ paperback and in hardcover, this being one of the later (of which this is one of several variant bindings). Ms. Leland visited Yosemite Valley twice, the first time during her nearly two-year trip around the world, the second time on her three-month summer trip across America and back following her world tour. Her first visit to the valley, which she reached by stage from Milton, was in June 1884. During her short stay in the valley she visited Mirror Lake and Glacier Point, the latter by way of the four mile trail. Upon her return to America, "After seeing many other countries, I desired to know more of my own," Ms Leland traveled by rail from New York City to the Pacific Coast in June 1886. Her second trip to Yosemite Valley, in late July, was by way of Clark's (Wawona). During her stay in Yosemite she revisited Glacier Point using the Echo Wall Trail (a trail from Casa Nevada to Glacier Point now known as the Eleven Mile Trail), commissioned in 1885 and still under construction when she passed over it. Yosemite, pages 26-32; 318-330. Ms Leland's account of her travels, composed of letters, partly in diary form, written for the entertainment of her family and friends, was put into the form of a continuous narrative by her editor, who "has been content to be little more than a proof reader, believing that any efforts at alteration or condensation would deprive them of the interest they now derive from the personality of the writer" (introduction., p. viii). "Lilian Leland, at the age of twenty-five, without premeditation or preparation, started upon a voyage which, unexpectedly, became the commencement of a journey which carried her around the world ... [a journey of nearly] sixty thousand miles in distance and covering a period of about two years. She traveled without escort or protection except chance acquaintances met on the way. No woman has ever traveled so far alone, with the single exception of Ida Pfeiffer who went twice around the world. Next to Lilian Leland is Isabella Bird, whose admirable books have earned for her a well deserved fame" (introduction, p. vii). A breezy, informal work by a perceptive, well-educated freethinker. Of interest to the Sierra Nevada researcher and should be reprinted. Provenance: A presentation copy with inscription by Ms Leland on the front flyleaf: "Hon Frank McCoppin / With the Compliments / of the Author." Frank McCoppin (1834-1897) was the first Irish-born, and foreign-born Mayor of San Francisco. He later served two terms in the California State Senate. In 1894, President Grover Cleveland appointed him Postmaster of San Francisco, a position he held until his death from stomach cancer on May 26, 1897. Cloth worn at edges, free endpapers chipped and detached, flyleaves tanned, frontispiece tissue guard foxed, text block clean and tight, a reading copy. (#167297).

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