Sixteen Months at the Gold Diggings

New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1851. First edition. Hardcover. Very good. 199; 6pp. Duodecimo [19 cm] Brown floral embossed cloth over boards with a gilt stamped title on the backstrip. Six pages of publisher's advertisements at the rear. Slight slope to the spine. Light internal foxing, with roughly a dozen pages showing more prominent foxing. Underlining and marking in pencil on p. 42. An attractive copy. Howes W-651. Graff 4741. Zamorano 80, 80. The author's recounting of his experiences as a prospector in the California Mines. "Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume IV" referred to his account in this way, "Becoming a miner among the miners, he had the most ample opportunities to learn their conditions, their prospects, their sufferings, and their rewards. He describes plainly what he saw. He borrows no colors from the fancy... Eminently free from exaggeration, it shows the hardships by which the gold of California was procured on the first discovery of the placers. Its tendency is to discourage emigration. He would advise those that are tolerably well off at home to be content.