Memoirs of Edward Bosqui

Oakland: Holmes Book Co., 1952 Book. Fine. Hardcover. Reprint of the excessively rare 1904 first edition, with new foreword, introduction and listing of Bosqui imprints by Harold C. Holmes. SIGNED on the front endpaper by Helen Weber Kennedy, great granddaughter of the founder of Stockton, California. Foreword by Harold C. Holmes. Introduction by Henry R. Wagner. xxvii, 180pp. Colored frontis, 3 facsimiles, 2 plates. Bibliography. Publisher's cloth-backed boards, paper spine label. Spine and top edge of front cover slightly faded. A fine copy. "Reminiscences of a pioneer printer, who came to California in 1850" (Howes). Bosqui, a native of Montreal, arrived in San Francisco in July of 1850. He obtained employment with the banking firm of Palmer, Cook & Co., grew tired of the routine and headed off for the Josephine Mine at Mariposa. After seeing the elephant, he returned to Palmer & Cook in May of 1851. He got tired of the routine again and left California in December of 1853, only to return to establish California's most famous nineteenth-century printing, bookbinding, and engraving establishment. Bosqui is considered San Francisco's first "fine printer." One if 350 copies printed by the Grabhorn Press. Now, quite scarce. See Cowan, p.64. [Howes: B-623; Kurutz: 66-b]..