SOUTHERN SIERRAS OF CALIFORNIA ... Illustrated from Photographs by the Author. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company The Riverside Press, 1923. 20.5x13 cm (octavo), pp. [i-vii] viii [ix] x [xi] xii [1-3] 4-367 [368: blank], 32 inserted plates, original pictorial olive green cloth, front panel stamped in black, brown, blue and gold, spine panel stamped in gold, fore and bottom edges rough trimmed. First edition. Copy number 44 of 50 copies "for Sierra Club members and their friends" with printed limitation slip numbered and signed by Saunders affixed to the front paste-down. Saunders' account of his tramps on foot through the mountain chains surrounding the urban areas of Southern California which, "viewed from without ... seem austere, barren, and uninviting" (page [3]). "The Sierra of Southern California rises abruptly without foothills out of the plain near sea level to heights of more than 11,000 feet. It is unique in having some of the steepest scarps and greatest reliefs from plain to peak of any mountains in the United States ... Saunders's narrative deals with specific sections of the 'southern sierras,' combining first-person travel accounts with passages on the people both famous and obscure who helped create the history and folklore of the region ... A botanist at heart, he carefully describes the plants and trees he finds along the way, He points out that the climates in these mountains range from those of the Sonoran Desert to the Hudsonian Arctic, creating a diverse range of vegetation. Overall, he was a keen observer who interspersed straightforward descriptions of rugged terrain and trails with enchanting evocations of potreros, cienegas, and pastures, of distant vistas of desert and ocean, and mountaintops above the clouds" (William G. Donohoo). Walker, A Literary History of Southern California, pp. 247-249. Zamorano Select 98. Cloth lightly worn at spine ends and corner tips, gold lettering on spine panel dull, a very good copy. (#167611).
Price: $1,000.00
No statement of printing. Limitation statement affixed to front paste-down reads: "Fifty copies of The Southern Sierras of / California have been signed by the author / for Sierra Club members and their friends. / of which this is No. ___ / [author's signature]."