The Wonders of the Yosemite Valley; and of California

Boston: Alexander Moore, 1871. First Edition. Hardcover. Good +. First printing, small quarto size, 69 pp. plus ten leaves with photographs. Professor Samuel Kneeland (1821-1888) was so taken by the wonders of Yosemite during his first trip that upon arrival home he took it upon himself to publish this early guide for travel to and sightseeing of Yosemite.

The photographs are attributed to John Soule, although research done by Currey & Kruska indicate that he never visited the park. This first printing provides ten tipped in original photographs, amoung the sights depicted are El Capitan, Vernal Falls, Washington Column and Yosemite Falls.

With the Ex-Libris of Herbert McLean Evans, possibly the Herbert McLean Evans (1882-1971) who was a professor at UC Berkeley and is attributed with the co-discovery of Vitamin E, in addition to being being an avid book collector.

___DESCRIPTION: Bound in aubergine cloth over boards with bevelled edges, the front board heavily decorated in gilt and black with the title and author in gilt, the same design on the back board in blind, all edges gilt, cream colored endpapers, all text pages bordered in red, with ten tissue-guarded inserted leaves with albumen photos; small quarto size (10 3/4" by 7 1/4"), pagination: [iii-iv] v [vi-viii] ix [x] xi-xii, 13-71; note that the bibliograpy states "Preliminaries are incorrectly numbered in all editions."

___CONDITION: A solid good copy which we would have graded as very good if not for the binding; the interior is very good or better, the hinges and textblock are sound and square, the text pages are clean although slightly toned and a few with very light foxing, and other than the Ex-Libris mentioned above, the sole prior owner markings we see are a faint name and date to the top of the front pastedown, with evidence of several other light pencil marks at the top of both front endpapers, slight wear to fore-edge of the leaf with the photograph of Yosemite Falls; the binding is good only, while the gilt on the covers is quite bright, there is overall wear especially to the corners, light overall soil (including a ring on the back cover), slight loss at the tail of the spine, and the top three-quarters of an inch of cloth missing from the head of the spine, and the spine is sunned.

___CITATIONS: Currey & Kruska No. 225, Cowan II pg. 333, Farquhar No. 10a.

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