MOUNTAINS AND MOLEHILLS OR RECOLLECTIONS OF A BURNT JOURNAL; (with Illustrations by the Author)
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855. Frank Marryat. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. Brown stampled cloth-over-board covers with lettering to spine, now faded. Rebacked with cloth from original spine laid down. Front hinge started, but binding tight. 27 full-page or in-text engravings by the author.
"...Marryat was one of the first to write on the early growth of San Francisco and gives a shrewd and unromantic view of those grubbing for gold...Amazingly he reconstructed from memory his 'burnt journal' after it was destroyed in one of the many San Francisco fires. Gary Kurutz, in the Volkmann Zamorano 80 Catalogue writes: 'Mountains and Molehills is one of the real showpieces of California literature. His powers of description are utterly entrancing...Briliantly written and illustrated, his book, along with a handful of others, forever shaped the perception of the greatest gold rush in world history...' (The Zamorano 80 Revisted, by Gordon Van de Water).
Maryatt died at age 29, shortly after the publication of this book, purportedly from Yellow Fever.
Howes M-299. Kurutz (The California Gold Rush) 439a; Graff 2685; Zamorano 80 (#52). GOOD PLUS. Item #85292
Price: $225.00 save 10% $202.50