Nestlings. A Collection of Poems

San Francisco: Californian Publishing Co., 1892. First Edition. Very good. First edition; 8 1/2 x 6 1/4; pp. [18], 2-46, ie. 92 (pagination to rectos only); beige, pictorial cloth over boards, decorated in brown; illustrated with numerous plates from photographs, including a photo-collage frontis; a bit of rubbing to tips of spine and light foxing to margins of cloth; light age-toning and occasional finger-smudging; gift inscription to first free leaf; in about very good condition.Ella Fraser Weller (1855 - 1940), "a friend of American presidents and leading educators," was a California poet and the wife of Dr. S. H. Weller - founder and first president of Occidental College in Los Angeles. Born in Illinois, she was said to have sat "on the knee of Abraham Lincoln" as a child and to have carried "an extensive correspondense with General William T. Sherman, who expressed interest in her youthful enthusiasm." After getting married and moving too California, first to Los Angeles and after her husband's death - to San Francisco, she would write numerous poems and short stories, including her current book of juvenile poetry, illustrated "from pictures of children in the author's immediate circle of friends."