San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1939. Stapled. Quarto size, [4] pp. This publication by the renowned San Francisco-based Grabhorn Press is a keepsake from the annual meeting of The American Institute of Accountants in 1939, and contains brief, humorous descriptions of some attractions in San Francisco and California's Pacific Slope... More about Accountant's Guide to the Gold Regions
New York: The Neale Publishing Company, 1917. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Twelvemo size, 235 pp. Written after the author had passed 88 years of age, this important early work follows his decision as a young man to leave his home in the East to seek gold in California in 1850. The... More about Recollections of a California Pioneer
[Oakland, California]: The Eucalyptus Press, Mills College, 1937. Uhl, Kathryn. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 500 copies, quarto size, 54 pp. This publication by the Eucalyptus Press, based in Mills College, is a series of letters written by Mary Atkins, founder of the Young Ladies Seminary in 1852, which would... More about The Diary of Mary Atkins; A Sabbatical in the Eighteen Sixties
San Francisco: The Book Club of California [printed at the Grabhorn Press], 1957. Audubon, John Woodhouse. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 400 copies, folio size, [82] pp. John Woodhouse Audubon (1812-1862), the son of renowned artist and naturalist John James Audubon, joined the search for gold in California in 1849... More about The Drawings of John Woodhouse Audubon Illustrating his Adventures through Mexico and California...
San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, Publishers / The History Company, Publishers, 1884 / 1889. Leather bound. Octavo size, 1633 total pp. These two books are Volumes XV and XVI of "The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft", a monumental thirty-nine-volume work comprising information on the Pacific coast region of... More about History of the North Mexican States (and Texas) [Volumes XV and XVI of "The Works of Hubert...
![The Native Races [Volumes I - V of "The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft"]. Hubert H. Bancroft](/pictures/thumb/121110137_1.JPG?v=1566258219)
San Francisco: A. L. Bancroft & Company, Publishers, 1882. Leather bound. Five volumes (complete sub-set of the "Works"), octavo size, 4095 total pp. "The Native Races" are the first five books of "The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft", a monumental thirty-nine-volume work comprising information on the Pacific coast region of... More about The Native Races [Volumes I - V of "The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft"
San Francisco: The Book Club of California (printed by Robert Grabhorn and Andrew Hoyem), 1969. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 500 copies, oblong elephant folio size, [178] pp. The Book Club of California publication number 133, being a sequel to Robert Becker's earlier club publication of 1964 (no. 118). This... More about Designs on the Land, Diseños of California Ranchos
![Diseños of California Ranchos, Maps of thirty-seven Land Grants [1822-1846]; From the Records of...](/pictures/thumb/18030303_1.JPG?v=1527023065)
San Francisco: The Book Club of California, printed by The Grabhorn Press, 1964. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 400 copies, folio size, [122] pp., with original sales correspondence slipped in. In 1961 the U.S. District Court in San Francisco decided to place a large collection of diseños (sketches presented to... More about Diseños of California Ranchos, Maps of thirty-seven Land Grants [1822-1846]; From the Records of...
San Francisco: The Book Club of California [printed at the Allen Press], 1946. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 300 copies, octavo size, [68] pp. "The publication of the most famous of all documents relating to the Donner Party," published at the centennial of the author's original accounting of the tragic... More about The Diary of Patrick Breen; Recounting the Ordeal of the Donner Party Snowbound In the Sierra...
San Francisco: Carnahan Publishing, 1902. Second Edition. Hardcover. Octavo size, 174 pp. Second edition (stated) of "probably the first novel set in the Fresno area." Likely the first story set in Fresno, although with much of the action being set in Yosemite where the family goes on several trips. The... More about Polly's Lion; A California Story for Children
San Francisco: John Henry Nash, 1938. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 650 copies, quarto size, 36 pp. The Exposition printed here is an effort by Carlos Antonio Carrillo (1783-1852), Governor of Alta California, to save the California Pious Fund for its original purpose: to fund Jesuit missionaries in California. After... More about Exposition Addressed to the Chamber of Deputies of the Congress of the Union by Senor Don Carlos...
San Francisco: The Book Club of California [designed by The Yolla Bolly Press], 2001. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 450 copies, unnumbered, folio size, 159 pp. After moving from Cannes, France, to Northern California, historian and researcher Claudine Chalmers was captured by the history and landscape of the Golden State;... More about Splendide Californie!; Impressions of the Golden State by French Artists, 1786 to 1900
New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., (1935). Hardcover. Two volumes (complete), octavo size, 1048 total pp., with fold-out map. The fur trade in the American West was an extensive economic vernture that brought many families to form settlements there, and strongly impacted the way of life of numerous Native Americans... More about The American Fur Trade of the Far West; A History of Pioneer Trading Posts & Early Fur...
Fresno, California: Valley Publishers, 1973. Hardcover. Octavo size, 143 pp. A piercing insight into the natives of much of what we know today as California; the Miwok people lived here for centuries before an influx of newcomers, most of them coming to seek gold, disrupted their society and culture. As... More about Miwok Means People, The Life and Fate of the Native Inhabitants of the California Gold Rush Country
Reno, Nevada: The Elms Publishing Co., 1913. Hardcover. Two volumes (complete), quarto size, 1305 pp. This history of Nevada, edited by journalist and historian Samuel Post Davis (1850-1918), spans two volumes; using biographical narrative and anecdotes to tell the history of the state, and giving biographical sketches of the people... More about The History of Nevada
San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1933. Parker, Arvilla. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 500 copies, quarto size, 107 pp. Nicholas Dawson (1819-1903), the partly self-educated schoolteacher infected with wanderlust, spent much of his life travelling on foot across America. His wanderings brought him through Missouri, Louisiana, and Arkansas to Mexico... More about Narrative of Nicholas "Cheyenne" Dawson (Overland to California in '41 & '49, and...
San Francisco: The Westgate Press [Printed by the Grabhorn Press], 1931. Hardcover. Unnumbered limited edition of 475 copies, octavo size, 124 pp. This edition of de Russailh's tales of his time in San Francisco was printed by the Grabhorn Press, one of the most highly renowned private presses in America... More about Last Adventure, San Francisco in 1851, Translated from the Original Journal of Albert Benard de...
San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1934. Nahl, Charles. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Quarto size, 80 pp. Alonzo Delano (1806 - 1874), who went by the pen name "Old Block", was an American humorist, pioneer town city father, and a California Gold Rush Forty-niner; his sketches of gold rush camp life rivaled... More about Pen-Knife Sketches, or, Chips of the Old Block; A Series of Original Illustrated Letters, Written...
San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1937. Derby, George H. [John Phoenix (pseudonym)]. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 550 copies printed, unnumbered, 8vo - over 7.75” - 9.75” tall, 240 p. John Phoenix, alias John P. Squibob, or George H. Derby (1823 - 1861), was an early California humorist who used... More about Phoenixiana, A Collection of the Burlesque & Sketches of John Phoenix, alias John P. Squibob,...
Kentfield, California: The Allen Press, 1956. Hughes-Stanton, Blair. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 200 copies, quarto size, 94 pp. Charles Dickens (1812-1870) and his friend Wilkie Collins (1824-1889), English novelist and playwright who wrote "The Moonstone", considered by many to be the first modern English detective novel, jointly wrote "The... More about The Wreck of the Golden Mary; A Saga of the California Gold Rush
[Kentfield, California]: Mallette Dean (laid out at The Allen Press), 1959. Dean, Mallette. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 200 copies., quarto size, [66] pp. The lively firsthand account of John Charles Duchow's voyage on the Clipper Staffordshire from Boston around Cape Horn, on his way to California. After the Allens... More about The Duchow Journal; A Voyage from Boston to California
San Francisco: The John H. Barry Company, 1910. First Edition. Hardcover. Octavo size, 672 pp. Criminals characters have often held a fascination with the public, with great quantities of books and films being inspired by them, both fiction and nonfiction. "Celebrated Criminal Cases in America", written by then-Captain of the... More about Celebrated Criminal Cases in America
San Francisco: The Press of Lewis and Dorothy Allen, 1942. Walker, Lawrence E. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 225 copies, duodecimo size, 61 pp. The exploration of California led many people to write effusively of the merits of Golden State, and Victor Fourgeaud (1815-1875) does so here in this reprint... More about The First Californiac; Being a Reprint of "Prospects of California" Written by Dr....
San Francisco: The Grabhorn Press, 1933. Parker, Arvilla. Limited Edition. Hardcover. One of 550 copies, quarto size, 180 pp. Francisco Vasquez de Coronado (1510-1554) was a Spanish conquistador whose expedition from Mexico to modern-day Kansas marked the first European sightings of the Grand Canyon and the Colorado River, among other... More about The Journey of Francisco Vazquez de Coronado 1540-1542
San Francisco, California: John Howell Books, 1971. Limited Edition, 1st Printing. Hardcover. Quarto size, 130 pp., with original shipping carton. A first-hand account of one of the earliest explorations of San Francisco Bay by Fr. Vicente Maria, with further details 'by participants in the first explorations of the Bay's waters'... More about The First Spanish Entry Into San Francisco Bay, 1775