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POLK'S ARIZONA AND NEW MEXICO PICTORIAL STATE GAZETTEER AND BUSINESS
DIRECTORY, FIRST STATEHOOD EDITION, 1912-1913, Volume No. 1.
R. L. Polk & Co., Publishers, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1912.
Description:
1st edition, large
8vo., original printed tan boards with red binding and silver lettering, 1,862 pages. This huge volume is profusely illustrated with photographs of business
establishments and business people throughout Arizona and New Mexico. An exceptional and rare business directory. Condition is unusually good for
such a usable tool. Very Good overall.
Price $3.250.00
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THE HIDDEN CANYON, A RIVER JOURNEY.
John Blaustein and Edward Abbey. The Viking Press, New York, 1977.
Description:
1st edition, oblong 4to., black cloth, pict. dustjacket, 136pp., most of them with fantastic color photos by Blaustein.
Chapter by Edward Abbey titled "A Journal," introduction by Martin Litton. This has got to be one of the dozen most beautiful books ever published on the Canyon.
Abbey's participation puts it in a very special class, as an Abbey collectible. This Abbey item has become very scarce in first edition hardback.
VG+ in VG+ dustjacket, INSCRIBED by author and Martin Litton, SIGNED by Edward Abbey.
Price $750.00
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THE PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF JAMES O. PATTIE OF KENTUCKY, during an Expedition from St. Louis, through the Vast Regions between that place and the Pacific Ocean,
and thence back through the City of Mexico to Vera Cruz, during Journeyings of Six Years. Together with a Description of the Country, and the various Nations
through which they passed.
James O. Pattie -- edited by Timothy Flint. E. H. Flint, Cincinnati, 1833.
Description:
Small 8vo., 300 pp., engraved plates, early or original leather, title label on spine, wear to covers, foxing. Farquhar 10.
One of the great rarities of Western Americana. The author and his father were engaged in the fur trade in the Southwest in the 1820s.
In 1828, they crossed overland to California, only the second American group to make the trip by a southern route (the first was Jedediah Smith in 1826),
and the first to publish an account of their journey. The party encountered difficulty and danger in New Mexico, Arizona, and California, where they were
tossed in jail by Mexican authorities and the elder Pattie vaccinating people during a small pox epidemic. It is considered one of the best accounts of
the fur trade, the Santa Fe trade, and early California, and one of the best overland narratives.
Price $4,500.00
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CANYONS OF THE COLORADO.
John Wesley Powell. Flood & Vincent, Meadville, PA, The Chautauqua-Century Press, 1895.
Description:
Large 4to., original embossed spine, two-tone full leather with gilt title on cover and spine, TEG, marbled end papers, deluxe edition, more than
250 illustrations, frontis. portrait of heavily bearded Powell with his facsimile signature. Howes P527. Farquhar 43.
Mr. Ned Arden Flood, Meadville, Penna. business card laid in with inscription to Mr. and Mrs. E. A. Saunders dated 30 May, 1905.
Howes calls this "The first complete narrative" [of Powell's famed transit of the Colorado river]; his earlier reports were largely devoted to scientific data."
Scores of this edition's illustrations appeared first, and probably only, in this account. Farquhar gives the Meadville a separate listing because
"it differs in so many respects from the report of 1875...Not only has the narrative been revised and augmented, but there are several new chapters and a
great many new illustrations. Included in the latter are adaptations from the superb sketches of William H. Holmes which are featured in the Dutton atlas.
Altogether, it is a handsome book, and also a scarce one." "Scarce" is an understatement: it is believed, by some Powell experts, and by Van Allen Bradley,
that only a hundred or so copies of the Meadville ever reached the marketplace, so the copy offered here may be literally "one in a hundred."
Darrah, in his POWELL OF THE COLORADO, says the Major was handsomely paid for his writing. He planned, said Darrah, to save the money toward purchase of a
summer cottage "on some rocky shore of the ocean." Powell ultimately made this dream come true. He passed away in his Haven, Maine waterfront cottage in 1902.
Price $12,500.00
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CLARENCE EDWARD DUTTON, An Appraisal.
Wallace E. Stegner. University of Utah, Salt Lake City, no date (1935).
Description:
Tall 8vo., grey wraps, 19pp. This is the first edition of the author's first book. The text is a condensation of the author's thesis at the State University of
Iowa titled "Clarence Edward Dutton, Geologist and Man of Letters." A three-page bibliography of the writings of Dutton follow the text and are unpaginated.
This is a true rare book, by a renowned author of our time. Known copies can be counted on one hand.
Lightly sunned spine, otherwise Near Fine. Author SIGNED bookplate laid in.
Price $12,500.00
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