ILLUSTRATED HAND-BOOK OF CALIFORNIA: HER CLIMATE, TRADE, EXPORTS, &c., &c., AGRICULTURAL AND MINERAL WEALTH. London: Sampson Low, Son, & Marston, Crown Buildings, 188, Fleet Street, 1870. 18.5x12.5 cm (octavo), pp. [i-iii] iv [v] [va-vb: errata leaf] vi-xiv [1] 2-116 [1-15]: ads [16]: printer's imprint, 14 inserted plates with tinted lithographs, 1 full-gage woodcut illustration of a Union Pacific train at Omaha, NB, in the text, 1 map (folded), publisher's decorated brown cloth stamped in gold and blind, fore-edge untrimmed, yellow coated endpapers. First edition. A curious work bristling with largely worthless statistics produced to promote emigration to the western United States following the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad. The statistics "are chiefly compiled from official reports up to the year 1868, which are the latest, and may be considered as being in every regard authentic, affording the most reliable source of information to the intending emigrant" (preface, pp. xii-xiii). Carr thanks "Mr. [Ernest] Seyd for the very accurate illustrations inserted in this work," which are lithographs from rather crude drawings that appeared in Seyd's CALIFORNIA AND ITS RESOURCES published in London in 1858! Six of the illustrations have nothing to do with California or emigrating there, being scenes along the tracks of the Pennsylvania Central Railroad (renamed Pennsylvania Railroad in 1870). A shameful hack job. Cowan (1933), p. 301. Spine lean, cloth worn at spine ends and lower front corner tip, some scattered foxing, several closed tears along map folds, a very good copy overall. Scarce in commerce. (#179132).
Price: $500.00
No statement of printing.