[CALIFORNIA] [MENUS] Bonanza Banquets - Full Set

San Francisco: THE BOOK CLUB OF CALIFORNIA , 1950. Hardcover. Essays and menus Fine. In very good folder, housed in good slipcase. Bonanza Banquets is a series of twelve essays issued with facsimile Gold Rushera San Francisco menus. Each number consists of a folded sheet with the series title on the front cover and an essay on the interior facing the facsimile menu. The series reproduces historically significant 19th-century San Francisco menus and pairs each with modern commentary by noted California writers, including Lucius Beebe, M. F. K. Fisher, Phil Townsend Hanna, Lindley Bynum, Oscar Lewis, Salvatore Lucia, Lawton Mackall, Robert OBrien, Francis Lewis Gould, Henry Perry, and Ruth Teiser. Together, these facsimile menus document period dishes, language, social customs, and pricing.

The set offered here is the complete keepsake series in its original printed folder, housed within the original slipcase. The banquet facsimiles were printed by Anderson & Ritchie of Los Angeles, better known as The Ward Ritchie Press. This example is further accompanied by a typed letter from Elizabeth Downs, Secretary of The Book Club of California, dated March 27, 1951, to a member, noting the enclosed final parts of the series (numbers 912) and confirming the completion of the project, with a reminder about ordering the slipcase promptly, as had been necessary during wartime shortages. Essays and menus are pristine; folder lightly toned; slipcase heavily rubbed at the spine.