Ode Sung at San Francisco, October 29, 1850

[Los Angeles, CA]: The Press of Muir Dawson, 1947.

4to. 9 3/8 x 8 inches. Unpaginated. [8] pp. Foreword by Glen Dawson; text clean, unmarked. Printed wrappers, stitched; binding square and tight, wrappers with a variety of wear, like a bumped top corner, but still a nice exemplar of a scarce item. Pencil notation in the gutter at the last page of the text block reads: "1948 gift of the printer." SCARCE. BMR423-001. Good.

FIRST EDITION, thus. Sung to the tune Star Spangled Banner. This poem was printed contemporarily as a broadside in San Francisco a couple of times. Foreword by Glen Dawson provides all the historical context then known for the people involved and the occasion of the presentation of the Ode in 1850. Elizabeth Wills was from an old New England family; she spent her childhood in Louisiana and New Hampshire. SCARCE: only one copy found for a comparable price, John Howell books offered one for $100 in 1979; that offer included a broadside printed by the San Francisco Picayune Print in 1850.

REFERENCE: Works Progress Administration, Northern California, San Francisco, A San Francisco Songster, p. 92.