first edition
1893 · Cambridge and Chicago
by Miller, Joaquin
Cambridge and Chicago: Stone & Kimball, 1893. First edition. First edition. Original gray-green smooth cloth with beveled boards, gilt borders and lettering on both covers and elaborately gilt spine, designed by George Hallowell. Top edges gilt, other edges uncut. A utopian prose romance, with epigraphs in verse for each of its twenty-four chapters. From Kramer's bibliography: "Its unfinished character, remarked by Joaquin Miller in his preface to the 1905 edition, is indicated by the lack of titles for chapters xvi and xxi." One of the earliest Stone and Kimball titles (Kramer 6) and the manuscript brought to the publishers personally by Hamlin Garland, saying it was "from the Heights," referring to the author's home which he built in Oakland. A very fine copy. Almost never seen, this is really a landmark in both printing as well as historical novels. near fine, bright copy. ìTo Joaquin Miller, California mystic, poet, poseur, and sometime politician, the pastoral utopia protects humanity from its worst self, and ëThe City Beautifulà is built on the axiom that ëman must be saved from man.Ãî (from "The Utopian Novel in America," Jean Pfaelzer. (#3244) Extremely scarce thus.
(Inventory #: 3244)