Lives of Notorious Felons. Joseph Shed! The Stocking Stealer of the Pacific!" -- Original Manuscript Story, and Sketchbook of Travels in the United States and Caribbean -- Steamer Winfield Scott

1852. Hardcover. Very Good. Original full red morocco, ornately stamped in blind and gilt; 8vo; 31 manuscript pages, including an illustrated short story, landscapes in pencil (Havana, the Hudson River, harbor of St. Thomas, Martinique), and 3 colored-pencil cartoons of American Indians (these seemingly contributed by a child). Just a little scuffed along joints and edges of boards, else fine. Likely the work of Horace Richardson, the title-page and "publication information" (see above) states that this unique item was "copied" by him, and one of the drawings (most of which are clearly by the same artist) is initialed "H. R." The book does, indeed, seem to correspond (at least in part) with a journey on the Winfield Scott, a sidewheel steamer that transported cargo and passengers from San Francisco and Panama during the California Gold Rush -- then sank in December of 1853. The landscapes are nicely accomplished: "Yosemite Falls from Black's Hotel" (signed "H.R."), "Highland Park Hotel, Aiken S.C.," "Vineyard Haven," "View from the Window in our Parlor in the Hotel El Telegrafo, Havana, 1872," "View from my Window at the West Point Hotel, Looking up the Hudson, 1872," and "Fort de France, Martinique, from the Sea." Opens with a weird little short story, in which the malefactor Joseph Shed spends his entire life stealing stockings (even dirty ones), punishment be damned.