The illustrated directory; a magazine of American cities, comprising views of business blocks, with reference to owners, occupants, professions and trades, public buildings and private residences. [Vol 1 No 1, - Vol 1 No 9 (of11)]

Illustrations of each building on downtown San Francisco blocks - most buildings pictured were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire

First edition. Excessivley scarce. Oblong Folio. 11 x 15 inches. Parts 1-9 (of 11). Cloth covered boards with "The Illustrated Directory, San Francisco" on cover. Excessive water stains and water damage. A good copy of a scarce item.

Extremely rare and unusual directory listing and picturing San Francisco business blocks and buildings in elevation, and identifying each business in the downtown area. It's as if one were looking across the street at an entire business block. Each part incldes an index page organized by business type. Extremely useful. An incredibly important reference, as almost all of these buildings were destroyed by the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. Published monthly in 11 parts in 1894 and 1895, this copy contains only the first 9 parts, as do most known surviving copies. The Rocq listing is for parts 4-11; the Norris copy had nine parts. Norris states that this directory is "Very Scarce and valuable." This copy has suffered extensive water damage. Most pages are waterstained, however most of the staining is in the margin above the illustrations. A few pages have suffered damage to the images; the pages were stuck together and the image was torn when the pages were separated. Despite the damge, the item is excessively scarce and rarely is offered for sale. There are no auction records located as of the time of this writing. [Rocq: 9917; Norris: 3460].