Catalogue:  1855-1890

ABBOTT, Charles C. (1843-1919)

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Upland and Meadow: A Ponetquissings Chronicle

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1886.  Published by Harper & Brothers, New York.

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Grey-green cloth boards with an attractive gilt and black design to front cover.  Small ownership sticker to fpd of John M. Hartman, noting "Class A/Not Loaned."  Otherwise unmarked and very tight.  VG to VG+.  

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Abbott was a pioneering archaeologist, naturalist and prolific author who was the first to demonstrate the presence of Native American civilization in the Delaware River Valley before the last ice age.  He was trained as an M.D. and served in the Union Army as a surgeon but subsequently never practiced.  He served for 13 years as assistant curator of the Peabody Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in Cambridge, MA, before becoming the first curator of University of Pennsylvania's new Dept. of Archaeology.  He wrote over 20 books as well as being a frequent contributor to various periodicals.  ​

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"Ponetquissings," per Abbott's Preface, was a creek emptying into the Delaware River from the New Jersey side whose name comes from Campanius' History of New Sweden (Not in Collection.  New Sweden refers to the lower stretches of the Delaware River), published in the 17th century, which applies names to various creeks and features which do not survive (the names, not the features). Abbott enjoyed theorizing on which creeks might be the ones Campanius identified.  

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Campanius was a missionary seeking to convert the Native Americans - a class of people of which Abbott is clearly not a fan (the missionaries, not the Native Americans!).  He writes in the Preface "...and from such scattered relics a more trustworthy history of the past can be reconstructed than from such prejudiced mention of the Indians as is made by the short-sighted missionaries who, in questionable efforts to elevate them, destroyed every good quality, and gave them nothing of lasting value in return.  What splendid opportunities had the early Quakers to preserve to us a much-desired knowledge of the aboriginal people of the Delaware Valley, and what trivial facts they left on record!...  The Indians, to whom Aryan civilization proved a curse, and whose last days were embittered by the bigotry that beset them...."  (p. vi-vii).

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BEECHER, Henry Ward (1813-1887)

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Star Papers; or, Experiences of Art and Nature

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1855.  Published by J.C. Derby, New York.  Inscribed. 

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Inscribed on ffe:  "Miss Esther Church with the kind regard of the author.  H.W. Beecher."  Per seller, Esther Church (later Esther Church Conant) is mentioned briefly in Beecher's papers held at Yale, thus was likely an acquaintance.  In publisher's blind-stamped cloth.  Corners of boards and spine ends worn.  Text block sound, with some early separation of gatherings.  VG-

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See EC History Chapter.

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[Link to EC History section]

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BOWLES, Samuel (1826-1878)

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Our New West; Records of Travel; The Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean; Over the Plains - Over the Mountains - Through the Great Interior Basin - Over the Sierra Nevadas - To and Up and Down the Pacific Coast; with Details of the Wonderful Natural Scenery, Agriculture, Mines, Business, Social Life, Progress and Prospects of Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, California, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia; Including a Full Description of the Pacific Railroad; and Of the Life of the Mormons, Indians, and Chinese; with Map, Portraits and Twelve Full Page Illustrations

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1869.  First edition.  Published "By Subscription Only" by Hartford Publishing Co., CT; J.D. Dennison, NY and J.A. Stoddard, Chicago.

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Cloth brown boards with edges scuffed.  Gilt embossed design on cover and faded gilt lettering on spine.  14 illustrations including steel engraved frontispiece with portraits of Bowles, Colfax and Bross.  No markings or foxing.

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Bowles was publisher and editor of the Springfield Republican (Massachusetts).  After the Civil War he made two lengthy trips west, accompanied by Schuyler Colfax, then Speaker of the House and later Vice President of the U.S., and William Bross, Lt. Gov. of Illinois.  The second trip was on the newly completed transcontinental railroad (referred to at the time as the Pacific Railroad).  The underlying theme of the book is the opportunity that the newly opened west afforded the "finest race" of people (as opposed to the existing "crude and conflicting civilizations" - to whit, miners, Mormons, Chinese and Indians).  The book was a combination of Bowles' two prior books about the trips, namely Across the Continent (1865) and The Switzerland of America (1869) (neither of which is in the Collection).  The Library of Congress describes The New West as "an influential traveler's account of the wilds and peoples of the West, in which he advocates preservation of other scenic areas such as Niagara Falls and the Adirondacks."  It also edges out Humboldt for the longest title of any book in the Collection.

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[Link to EC History section]​

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BREWER, William H. (1828-1910)

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Up and Down California in 1860-1864: The Journal of William H. Brewer, Professor of Agriculture in the Sheffield Scientific School from 1864 to 1903

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Edited by Francis P. Farquhar (1887-1974)

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1930.  First edition.  Published by Yale University Press

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[Note I have included this in the 1855-1900 section notwithstanding publication date given content]

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With a preface by Russell H. Chittenden, Director of Yale's Sheffield Scientific School from 1898-1922.  Brewer was a member of the first graduating class of Sheffield and later became the school's first Chair of Agriculture after completing the survey work covered in this book, a position he held for 39 years.  "Published on the Foundation established in memory of Philip Hamilton McMillan of the class of 1894 Yale College."  Laid in are two identical cards, essentially bookmarks, about McMillan (a prominent Detroit businessperson) and the Foundation, which was endowed with $100k in 1922 and of which this was the 13th book printed under its auspices.  Blue cloth boards and gilt lettering and design on spine, all like new.  Unmarked and unfoxed, with some pages still uncut.  The book is on the Zamorano 80 list of notable books about California.  VG++ to NF in a VG NPCDJ. 

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Editor Francis Farquhar was a notable mountaineer, environmentalist, author and businessman.  He edited the Sierra Club Bulletin for 20 years and served on the Club's board and as its President at various times.  There is a mountain in Kings Canyon NP named after him, near Mt. Brewer.  

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William Brewer was primarily a botanist, albeit one with a broad knowledge of the other natural sciences including geology and chemistry.  He was hired by J.D. Whitney to lead the field work of the first California Geological Survey.  It is his journals from those expeditions which are covered in this book.  Notes Lyon:  "His descriptions of pristine, near pristine, and already-besmirched California landscapes are always scientifically precise and often touched with enthusiasm." [p. 419].   He was one of the scientists who accompanied the Harriman Alaska Expedition in 1899, the report of which is contained elsewhere in this Collection.  James Gardner worked for Brewer on the survey, as did Clarence King after his 1863 graduation from Sheffield.

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Brewer was particularly interested in forestry.  Per a lengthy biographical note on Brewer written by Russell H. Chittenden for the National Acadamy of Sciences [https://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/brewer-william]:

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From his earliest years Brewer had manifested great interest in forestry, an interest that had grown steadily with his increasing appreciation of the importance of forests to the national welfare....  Later, when public attention was being directed to the declining condition of the forests, he became an ardent advocate for a thorough investigation of the matter, and in 1896...he was one of the Commission appointed to investigate and formulate proper methods for the preservation of forest resources of the country....  Eventually, as a result of the recommendations submitted to the Government, the National Department of Forestry was established....  When in 1900 the Yale Forest School was established, Brewer took an active part in its organization, serving as a member of its governing board.... [pp. 311-2]  

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Brewer's is a name which appears frequently in reading about the environmental history of this period.  He was apparently not a table-pounder, but at the same time it is also clearly a man of considerable influence whose impressive work touched many of the people profiled throughout this section, including Muir, Pinchot, Fernow, Sargent, Clarence King and William Steel among others.  

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[Link to EC History section]​

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DARWIN, Charles (1809-1882) [Link to Photos]

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On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life [Photos]

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1860.  Second edition (Fifth Thousand).  Published by John Murray, London

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Octavo.  Original green blind stamped cloth boards with some small paint-like stains to front cover.  Crisp gilt lettering to spine.  Minor scuffing to corners and spine edges.  Small owner's signature to front pastedown, dated 1860.  Small binder's ticket of Edmonds & Remnants on lower left corner of rear pastedown.  Otherwise, no markings or foxing.  32-page publisher's catalogue at rear dated January 1860.  Opposite first page of introduction is an "Instruction to Binder/The Diagram [which is present] to front page 117 and to face the rear of the volume."  A clean, tight, unsophisticated copy.  Housed in a custom clamshell box.  VG++. 

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See EC History Chapter.  Also see the entry on Alfred Russel Wallace's Darwinism below.​

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[Link to EC History section]

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ELLIOTT, Henry W. (1846-1930)

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Our Arctic Province: Alaska and the Seal Islands

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1886.  First printing.  Published by Charles Scribner's, New York

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Blue boards with ornate gilt and red stamped designs and lettering.  Lavishly illustrated with plates and line drawings by author.  Folded map 21" x 16.5" in rear with small internal tears at creases, followed by two-page publisher's catalogue.  Hinges cracked, cover edges worn.  Ownership sig and stamp of Edw. D. Mitchell and a personal gift inscription by Mitchell to James Glen Mead thanking him for research assistance and companionship on a trip to the North Atlantic.  Mead is likely Emeritus Curator of marine mammals at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum.

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Elliott was an author, artist and environmentalist who became active in efforts to conserve the fur seal.  He was the author of the 1911 Hays-Elliott Fur Seal Treaty, the first international treaty on wildlife conservation.  [See C. Hart Merriam for a volume inscribed to Elliott.]

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FLAGG, Wilson (1805-1884)

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Studies in the Field and Forest

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1857.  First edition.  Published by Little, Brown, Boston

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Brown stamped cloth boards.  Crisp gilt lettering to spine.  No markings or foxing.  NF

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The Woods and By-Ways of New England

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1872.  First edition.  Published by James R. Osgood, Boston

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Beautiful ornately stamped and embossed green cloth boards with crisp and bright gilt designs and lettering on cover and spine.  Unmarked and largely unfoxed.  22 photographic illustrations protected by lightly foxed tissue guards.  Gilt-edged pages.  Beautiful, fine condition.

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Birds and Seasons of New England

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1875.  First edition.  Published by James R. Osgood, Boston

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Beautiful ornately stamped and embossed red cloth boards with crisp and bright gilt designs and lettering on cover and spine.  Unmarked and very lightly foxed in spots.  12 photographic illustrations protected by lightly foxed tissue guards.  Gilt-edged pages.  Beautiful, NF condition.

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See EC History Chapter.

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[Link to EC History section]

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GEORGE, Henry (1839-1897)

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Our Land and Land Policy, National and State

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1871.  First edition booklet in paper wrappers.  Published by White & Bauer and W.E. Loomis, both of San Francisco.

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Booklet in paper wrappers with colored folded map of California showing "Rail Roads and Rail Road Reservations" which, to the naked eye, appear to encompass at least one-third of the state.  Front wrapper repaired in inner margin, stitching of top gathering a little loose, map with minor tear and repairs along folds.  VG

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George was at the vanguard of the Progressive Movement.  Our Land and Land Policy was George's first published work outside newspaper articles.  He was an unknown reporter in San Franscisco, and it had a limited printing of about 1,000 copies.  The Library of Congress calls it "an influential critique deploring the squandering of the public domain and natural resources."  It focused on abuses by large landowners, particularly railroads and mining companies, in California.  It was later expanded to become the seminal Progress and Poverty (1879), which launched the Progressive movement, sold millions of copies worldwide, and influenced a generation or more of the top thinkers of the day in the U.S. and perhaps even more so in Europe. 

 

[Link to EC History section]

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HIGGINSON, Thomas Wentworth (1823-1911)

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Out-Door Papers

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1863.  First edition.  Published by Ticknor & Fields, Boston

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Blind-stamped dark green/gray boards with crisp gilt lettering to spine.  One owner's sig, otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  Very solid.

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See EC History Chapter.

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[Link to EC History section]

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HOUGH, Franklin B. (1822-1885)

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The Elements of Forestry: Designed to Afford Information Concerning the Planting and Care of Forest Trees; For Ornament or Profit; and Giving Suggestions upon the Creation and Care of Woodlands; With the View of Securing the Greatest Benefit for the Longest Time Particularly Adapted to the Wants and Conditions of the United States

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1882.  First edition.  Published by Robert Clarke & Co., Cincinnati

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Dark green cloth boards with crisp gilt lettering and design of acorns to spine.  One owner's signature (Fanny L. Wynne), otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  Very solid.  VG+

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[See also Hough's seminal Report on Forestry (1878) in Government Publications]

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Hough is sometimes described as the "father of American forestry," serving as the first chief of the US Division of Forestry, the predecessor of the US Forest Service.  He was among the first to take the lessons of George Perkins Marsh's Man and Nature (1864) and argue for the systematic protection of US forests.

 

Hough was a bit of a polymath - he originally got his MD and practiced medicine.  However, his interests in history, botany and minerology (he discovered the mineral named houghite) led him to stop practicing medicine at age 30 in order to concentrate on research and writing.  His first books were histories of several counties in the Adirondack region of New York State, where he lived.  Per Wikipedia, he wrote prolifically, keeping three or more manuscripts going at a time, each in a different room.  He explained his diligence by saying "I seek repose in labor."

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Per the website of the Forest History Society:

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Hough presented a paper at the August 1873 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. His paper, "On the Duty of Governments in the Preservation of Forests," presented the case, first articulated by George Perkins Marsh in his book Man and Nature (1864), that the Mediterranean countries had overused their resources—especially trees—and caused irrevocable harm to the environment. He proposed that the federal government take action immediately—even outlining plans and laws to be enacted—to prevent the same thing from happening in the United States. Impressed, the association petitioned Congress to fund a position to study the situation. Three years later, Congress approved $2,000 for the job and Hough received the appointment as special forestry agent. On August 30, 1876, he became the first federal expert on forestry with the duty to investigate the forest and lumbering situation in the U.S.

 

By then, Hough had spent five years gathering data from around the U.S. and from countries around the world. He compiled the data into the massive Report on Forestry (1878) [see Catalogue entry in Government Publications], the first of four reports highly critical of contemporary attitudes and practices. The reports laid a solid foundation for serious discussion of American forest conditions at the height of the Industrial Revolution. In 1881, the position of federal forestry agent was elevated to division status, and the U.S. Division of Forestry (the predecessor to the U.S. Forest Service) came into being. Yet his repeated calls for the management and withdrawal of the remaining forest land within the public domain continued to be ignored.  [Hough was serving in the role of the first Chief of Forestry Division when The Elements of Forestry was published.]

 

Hough pressed on, turning out reports and books, even launching the short-lived American Journal of Forestry in 1882. In 1883, Hough was demoted back to forestry agent and replaced with Nathaniel Egleston by Commissioner of Agriculture George B. Loring, a fellow physician who personally disliked Hough. Hough remained with the division, and though unhappy continued to do stellar work. Two years later he stepped down shortly before his death. Hough continues to be regarded as the first leader of the American forestry movement and is sometimes called "the father of American forestry."

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As a postscript, per Bernard Fernow's Report Upon the Forestry Investigations... (1899 - see Governement Publications section), after Hough's 1873 landmark address, the AAAS appointed a committee to "memorialize Congress...upon the importance of promoting the cultivation of timber and the preservation of forests...."  Among the members of the nine-member committee were Hough, George B. Emerson, Asa Gray, J.D. Whitney, and William H. Brewer.  The report to Congress was prepared by a subcommittee consisting of Hough and Emerson, and it was that document which ultimately drove the creation of the first federal forestry position which Hough occupied.  

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Hough's home in Lowville, NY, on the western edge of the Daks, was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1963.

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[Link to EC History section]

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HUTCHINGS, James Mason (1820-1902)

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Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California

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1861.  First edition.  Published by Hutchings & Rosenfield, San Francisco

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Red morocco boards embossed with intricate gilt designs.  Prior owner sig on fpd, otherwise unmarked.  Some soiling of front cover.  No foxing.  92 small (rarely full page) woodcut engraved illustrations.  Gilt-edged text block.  The book was very influential in publicizing the beauty of the Yosemite Valley and stimulating tourism to it. 

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In the Heart of the Sierras; The Yo Semite Valley, with Historical and Descriptive: and Scenes by the Way.  Big Tree Groves.  The High Sierra, with its Magnificent Scenery, Ancient and Modern Glaciers, and other Objects of Interest; With Tables of Distances with Altitudes, Maps, etc.  Profusely Illustrated.

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1886.  First printing.  Self-published "At the Old Cabin, Yo Semite Valley, and at Pacific Press Publishing House, Oakland, Ca."

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Illustrated with 28 inserted plates and two maps (one folding) plus numerous wood engravings and photos in text.  All first printing points present, enumerated by auctioneer PBA Galleries.  Per PBA:  "According to Farquhar, In the Heart of the Sierras was Hutchings' crowning achievement and '…contains a great deal more…than an account of Hutchings' personal experiences; it covers more fully than any other work of its day every aspect of the Yosemite Valley and the Big Trees that could be considered of general interest to visitors.'"  Original deluxe binding of half brown morocco and pebbled cloth lettered and decorated in gilt, rebacked with original spine laid down, stamped in blind on rear, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled.  Wear to extremities, original spine chipping off, hinges reinforced.  Terrain-style folding map by USGS/Army Corp of Engineers, with small closed tear at stub.  VG.

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Laid in is an undated typewritten sale listing for the volume from Dirk Cable, Bookseller, of Pasadena, CA.  According to an LA Times obit, Cable died in 2000, at the age of 72.  Per the obit:  "After a lengthy career in the insurance industry, he opened his bookshop on Lake Avenue in 1972."

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Hutchings was a sawmill/hotel operator in Yosemite for whom John Muir worked and with whom he lived for a time after shepherding.  Muir may have been romantically involved with Hutchings' wife Elvira.  Hutchings was a tireless promoter of Yosemite, having led the second tourist party ever there in 1855 (the first resulted in no writings), and having then moved there.  Hutchings lost a US Supreme Court legal challenge seeking to grandfather 160 acres of land for himself following the Yosemite Grant of the valley to California as protected land, and was ultimately banned from the valley in 1875 due to his constant challenging of laws prohibiting construction of buildings on public land.  He comes across as a bit of a visionary and, at the same time, a bit of an asshole.  Hoping Elvira and JM had their fun :)

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Departing from my usual practice of synthesizing info, the following is reproduced in its entirety from the National Parks Service Website about Yosemite (https://www.nps.gov/yose/learn/historycuture/hutchings.htm):  

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James and Elvira Hutchings offered a soft bed to Yosemite’s earliest travelers. The pioneer couple owned and operated a busy Valley hotel, the Hutchings House, beginning in 1864, for more than a decade. Their primitive hostelry was one of nine that first offered accommodations to tourists—standing as the very foundation of tourism in Yosemite. The Hutchings connection to Yosemite, however, predated their hotel by several years.

Englishman James Mason Hutchings—an enterprising carpenter, gold miner, and journalist—first visited Yosemite in 1855. Having heard of the Mariposa Battalion’s encounter with a waterfall “nearly a thousand feet high,” Hutchings hired two American Indian guides to take him to the site. When he returned, he reported his experience in the newspapers as a “luxurious scenic banqueting.” To further whet the curious appetites of readers, he began publishing the Hutchings’ California Magazine and became the authoritative voice regarding Yosemite. The premier edition contained the first published illustrations of Yosemite Valley, and the total 60 issues, published from 1856 to 1861, succeeded in turning Yosemite into an overnight sensation.

Publisher James Hutchings became Yosemite's first spokesperson through texts shared across the country.  In 1859, on another journalistic sojourn into Yosemite, Hutchings checked into a newly-opened but crude two-story Valley inn called the Upper Hotel. As time went on, he thought about the lucrative financial potential of becoming an inn owner in such a remote but alluring location, but he knew the success of any serious tourism venture would depend on improved access to the Valley. That point was rather dramatically impressed upon Hutchings during the winter of 1862 when he attempted a late-season trip into Yosemite with Galen Clark and James Lamon. Storms and deep snow drifts turned back his traveling companions, but Hutchings forged ahead alone. His harrowing adventure furnished more grist for his publications.

Hutchings and his wife, Elvira, whom he married in 1860, acquired the Upper Hotel in Yosemite for $400 and renamed it the Hutchings House in 1864. The structure and its furnishings were indeed primitive. Hutchings at least added glass panes to windows that were nothing more than open frames, and simple fern-stuffed mattresses and sheet partitions provided sojourners with modest comfort and little privacy. Two years later, the large Big Tree Room, functioning as a kitchen/sitting room, was added that incorporated a 175-foot-tall live incense-cedar tree growing in the middle of the room and up through the roof.

In 1864, Flo Hutchings was the first non- Indian child to be born in Yosemite Valley.  The women of the Hutchings House—Elvira and her mother Florantha T. Sproat – were responsible for the day-to-day inn operations like cooking, waiting tables, and other basic needs. Elvira involved her two daughters, Florence and Gertrude, in the daily chores but not her son William, who had a spinal deformation. Husband James, unfortunately, was more interested in promoting his own legendary status than looking after visitors, and the gregarious owner did not even ensure dining guests were furnished with silverware! In actuality, the mother-in-law carried the load of the hotel business because Elvira, a painter, became preoccupied with studying music, botany, and other intellectual matters.

While operating the hotel, the Hutchings met a shabbily dressed sheepherder who had arrived in the area looking for work in 1869. James Hutchings hired the 31-year-old Scotsman named John Muir to build and operate his sawmill. Muir finally quit two years later as tension grew between the two men. Each viewed himself as the official Yosemite spokesman. Hutchings had been writing about Yosemite for nearly two decades, and he was jealous of Muir’s public attention. When Hutchings later completed his famous 496-page Yosemite tome, In the Heart of the Sierras, not one named reference was made to Muir.

James Hutchings published his enduring love of Yosemite in a 496-page tome, "In the Heart of the Sierras," in 1886.

Legal problems plagued the Hutchings House operation during the decade it operated. Two months after the Hutchings purchased the hotel, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Act of Congress transferring Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove to the State of California as a grant reserved from settlement. The grant’s administrators subsequently maintained that the family’s claim to the property was not valid and insisted that the couple sign a lease for the hotel. The Hutchings mounted a bitter publicity campaign and legal battle that dragged on until 1874 when they received a $24,000 settlement from the state legislature. The Hutchings were also offered a lease to continue operating the hotel but chose instead to move their family (and money) to the mother-in-law’s home in San Francisco. Shortly afterward, James and Elvira divorced, yet James and the children continued to live with the indomitable mother-in-law.

Ironically, changes in state politics brought James Hutchings back to live in Yosemite. The California Constitutional Convention of 1878-79 terminated the grant’s long-standing administrators. The new commissioners, in turn, removed the first guardian, Galen Clark, and in 1880, they appointed James Hutchings in the post; however, his “tactless, imperious attitude” seems to have endeared him to few. Exactly four years after he was appointed, he was discharged and left Yosemite.

For the Hutchings family, tragedy marred the following years. In September 1881, daughter Flo died in a freak accident on the Ledge Trail below Glacier Point. Then, in 1902, James died in a wagon accident on the Big Oak Flat Road while vacationing in Yosemite with his third wife, Emily. (Both James and Flo are buried in the Yosemite Valley Cemetery.) Elvira, who gained some notoriety for her Yosemite watercolor paintings, eventually re-located to Vermont where daughter Gertrude lived. Elvira died there in 1917.

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[Link to EC History section]

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KING, Clarence (1842-1901)

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Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada

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1872.  First edition, first printing.  Published by James R. Osgood & Co., Boston.  First impression, with Provenance

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With publisher's colophon on title page, indicating first impression.  Spine sun-faded but legible.  Gilt-edged top edge of text block.  The book is a "classic work of travel literature uniting scientific geology and artistic sensibility, which helps stimulate Eastern fascination with Western wilderness" per the Library of Congress.  Ownership stamp of Justin Winsor (1831-97).  Winsor was a prominent historian, author, cartographer and librarian at the Harvard and Boston Public Libraries.  First president of the American Library Association and third president of the American Historical Association.  [See John Josselyn for another book previously owned by Winsor].  No other markings, no foxing.  Housed in custom box in which second copy below was originally acquired.  VG

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Mountaineering in the Sierra Nevada [Second copy]

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1872.  First edition, early printing.  Published by James R. Osgood & Co., Boston 

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Front board mostly detached; spine sun-faded but legible.  Gilt-edged top edge of text block.  Bookplate of James Strohn Copley (1916-1973), arch-conservative former publisher of San Diego Union and San Diego Evening Tribune.  (Copley also owned the copy of Crevecoeur's Letters from and American Farmer (1782) in the Collection).  No other markings, no foxing beyond first couple of endpapers.  

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Per the narrative, King was an interesting cat.  Mountaineering was his only book for a mainstream audience and was popular and influential.  Primarily a geologist, he served as the first head of the USGS from 1879-81.  He published important scientific work throughout his life.  See separate entry on King, as well as John Wesley Powell, in Government Publications for several reports to which King contributed.

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[Link to EC History section]

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LANGFORD, Nathaniel Pitt (1832-1911)

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Diary of the Washburn Expedition to the Yellowstone and Firehole Rivers in the Year 1870 [Title on Cover and Spine:  The Discovery of Yellowstone Park, 1870]

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1905.  First edition.  Self-Published? (Some copies for sale report stamp of J.E. Haynes Publishing of St. Paul, MN)

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[Note I have included this in the 1855-1900 section notwithstanding publication date given content]

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Attractive dark blue cloth boards with red-stamped pictorial cover and gilt lettering to cover and spine.  High quality heavy coated paper with numerous illustrations, including photographs, engravings and, at the end, copies of original sketches made in the park.  Partially torn bookplate on inside front cover, otherwise unmarked, unfoxed and very solid.

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See narrative.  N.P. (nicknamed "National Park") Langford was influential in the effort to protect Yellowstone as a national park and became its first Superintendent.  This fascinating book starts with an excellent overview of the exploration of the area, the efforts to protect it, and the first years of the park.  The balance is Langford's diary from the expedition.

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[Link to EC History section]

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MARSH, George Perkins (1801-1882)

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Man and Nature; or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action [Photos]

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1864.  First edition.  Published by Charles Scribner, New York.  Presentation copy to VT Senator Jacob Collamer

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With the ownership signature of Jacob Collamer on endpaper preceding title page and, in the same hand, "Presented to J. Collamer By the Author" written on the ffe.  Original brown blind stamped cloth boards.  Crisp lettering to spine.  Moderately to heavily foxed throughout.  Text block slightly stiff and swollen from exposure to excess humidity, but otherwise unmarked and very solid.  List of Marsh's other works opposite title page.  Housed in custom slipcover.

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Jacob Collamer (1791-1865) was a prominent abolitionist from Vermont who served in the U.S. House of Representatives, as Postmaster General, as a judge and, for the last ten years of his life, as a U.S. Senator.  He was also one of the three members of the committee which examined and admitted Marsh to the bar to practice law in 1825.  

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Man and Nature; or Physical Geography as Modified by Human Action [Photos]

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1864.  First U.K. edition.  (I am assuming the U.S. edition preceded the U.K. edition but have no independent verification of that fact.  Marsh was American but was serving in a diplomatic post in Italy in 1864).  Published by Sampson, Low, Son and Marston, London.  

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Burgundy boards and spine elaborately blind stamped.  Spine is slightly sun faded.  Gilt lettering on spine, which atypically includes the entire title in addition to author and publisher, is very crisp.  Owner's signature on first free endpaper, otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  Very small sticker of bookseller in upper left corner of front pastedown:  "Henry Greer/Book & Fancy Warehouse/31 High St. Belfast".  Page edges roughly cut.  Overall, a stunningly beautiful, solid tome.  Housed in custom slipcover.

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Life and Letters of George Perkins Marsh (Volume 1 of 2)

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1888.  First edition.  Published by Charles Scribner's Sons.

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Brown cloth boards with crisp gilt lettering to spine.  Ex libris The American Academy in Rome, with its stamp top of title page and reference number bottom of spine.  Tissue-guarded frontispiece - an engraving of a portrait of Marsh.  Very minor foxing, beginning some separation of early pages.  Bar code sticker on rpd, whether from library or a bookseller is unclear.  VG-

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Comp​iled by Marsh's wife Caroline Crane Marsh who, in a brief Preface, notes that the project was initially undertaken by a Dr. Samuel Gilman Brown, a scholar and "intimate friend of the Marsh family" who died early in the process.  She makes clear her feeling of unworthiness, although she allows her deep knowledge of Marsh and his love of truth are an asset.  Marsh was devoted to his wife, who suffered from severe chronic physical ailments (per Lowenthal's biography of Marsh) - she was very clearly no intellectual slouch.  

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Catalogue of the Library of George Perkins Marsh

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1892.  First edition.  Published by the University of Vermont, Burlington

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Burgendy cloth boards with crisp gilt lettering to spine.  Scuff to top left corner of front cover.  Spine sun faded.  Ownership signature of "B. Bandel/Dept. of English/Univ. of Vermont" on front pastedown.  Otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  742 pages.

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Marsh's library of approximately 12,000 volumes was purchased after his death by Frederick Billings for $15,000 and presented as a gift to the University of Vermont in 1883.  The University built a separate room (30 x 39 x 21 feet high) off the main reading room of its library to house the collection in 1888.

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See EC History Chapter.

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[Link to EC History section]​

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MEARNS, Edgar A. (1856-1916)

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A List of the Birds of Hudson Highlands with Annotations [Photos]

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1878.  Seven separate unbound pamphlets (plus an extra copy of Part I).  From the Bulletins of the Essex Institute.  Presentation copy to C. Hart Merriam.

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Plain paper pamphlets, with fragile bindings, some with twine.  Paper yellowed but otherwise sound.  One of two copies of Part I is inscribed "Dr. C. Hart Merriam, with the compliments of the Author."  That copy is partially loose.​

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Mearns was surgeon, ornithologist and field naturalist who was a founder of the American Ornithological Union.  He was a well-traveled US Army doctor from 1882-1909, when he retired as a Lieutenant Colonel.  He was invited by Theodore Roosevelt to accompany the Roosevelt-Smithsonian African Expedition (chronicled by TR in 'African Game Trails' described elsewhere herein), which he did in 1911-12.  A dozen birds and mammal taxa are named for Mearns.

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[Link to EC History section]

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MERRIAM, C. (Clinton) Hart (1855-1942)  [Also See Anthologies]

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A Review of the Birds of Connecticut with Remarks on their Habits [Photos]

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1877.  Paper covered booklet.  From the Transactions of the Connecticut Academy.  Presentation copy to Henry Wood Elliott.

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Plain paper 165-page (plus errata sheet) booklet with heavier paper covers.  Text block unmarked and sound.  Cover edge lightly chipped.  At top of cover is handwritten:  "Henry W. Elliott/Compliments of the Author."  On cover is also the stamp of the Smithsonian Institution National Museum, OILL Collection, with a handwritten six-digit reference number.  [See the Elliott entry Our Arctic Province (1886) above].​​ 

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This book was "significant in that it recognized that the distribution of birds' ranges is governed by temperature during the breeding season...."  (Wikipedia entry on Merriam).​

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Merriam's influence cannot be understated.  He basically developed the science of mammalogy, and was Teddy Roosevelt's close advisor on biology and wildlife.  There were a bunch of generally bad guys (i.e. Osborn, Hornaday and Grant) who were thought leaders on the wildlife conservation front around this time, and eugenicists.  Merriam was a forward thinker for his time - and he accomplished much.  He had TR's ear.  He translated thought to action - apparently with no eugenicist/white supremacist bullshit intervening. 

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See the EC History chapter on the Progressive Era for more on Merriam.  See also the Anthology section.  In addition to editing the report of the Harriman Alaska Expedition (1903), he wrote two essays in the Transactions of the Linnaean Society (1882/84). 

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[Link to EC History section]

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MURRAY, William H.H. (1840-1904)

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Adventures in the Wilderness; Or, Camp-Life in the Adirondacks

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1869.  First edition - one of several printings in the initial year of publication - has added info on train access.  Published by Fields, Osgood & Co., Boston

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Green cloth boards with embossed gilt designs and lettering on cover and spine.  Ownership signature dated Oct. 1869.  Bookplate of William Temple Emmet, a prominent lawyer from Westchester County, NY, who has his own Wikipedia entry.  Otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  Exterior corners worn.

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See narrative.  An incredibly popular and influential book.  "Although the book was to become one of the most influential books in the conservation movement of the 19th century, paradoxically, within five years it led to the building of over 200 'Great Camps' in the Adirondacks; 'Murray’s Fools' poured into the wilderness each weekend, packing specially scheduled railroad trains.  The book is cited as changing common parlance to use 'vacation' instead of the British 'holiday' for people vacating their city homes."  [From Wikipedia entry on Murray]

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NORTHRUP, A. Judd (1833-1919)

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Camps and Tramps in the Adirondacks, and Grayling Fishing in Northern Michigan: A Record of Summer Vacations in the Wilderness

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1880.  First edition.  Published by Davis, Bardeen & Co., Syracuse NY

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Attractive sky-blue boards with embossed gilt scenes of camp life.  No markings, minor foxing, spine sun-faded but legible.

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Northrup was a long-time judge and U.S. Commissioner in Syracuse NY.

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OLMSTED, Frederick Law (1822-1903)

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Yosemite and the Mariposa Grove; A Preliminary Report, 1865 

 

1865 - This is a copy from the 1993 limited edition (#212 of 450) of the report, published by the Yosemite Association. 

 

The report was adopted by the Olmsted-chaired first Yosemite Commission, but not issued - it was rediscovered in 1952.  The report is 28.5 pages.  There is a 14-page Introduction by Victoria Post Ranney, editor of Volume 5 of Olmsted's papers.  With woodcut-style illustrations by prominent artist Wayne Thiebaud.  Outer edges of pages rough cut.  F no DJ, presumably as issued.

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As described by the website yosemite.ca.us: 

 

"...this Report offers one of the first systematic expositions in the history of the Western world of the importance of contact with the wilderness for human well-being, the effect of beautiful scenery on human perception, and the moral responsibility of democratic governments to preserve regions of extraordinary natural beauty for the benefit of the whole people.  The Report also includes characteristically thoughtful suggestions for managing the Park for human access with minimal harm to the natural environment.... Only in the twentieth century has his Preliminary Report come to be widely recognized as one of the most profound and original philosophical statements to emerge from the American conservation movement."

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Olmsted is perhaps the most under-represented individual in the Collection relative to his importance to the conservation movement.  He did a great deal but did not write about it so much.  (Muir's publisher Robert Underwood Johnson would be another candidate for that distinction, as discussed elsewhere herein).  A longer discussion of his contributions is discussed in the EC History chapter.

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​[See also the1879 New York State Survey Report on the Niagara Falls Reservation in Government Publications, to which Olmsted was a key contributor.]

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[Create Link to EC History section]

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ROOSEVELT, Robert B. (1829-1906)

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Game Fish of the Northern States of America, and British Provinces

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1862.  First.  Published by G.W. Carleton, New York

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Robert Barnwell Roosevelt was a sportsman and politician who was a very well-known naturalist and early conservationist in his own right, in addition to being perhaps the single most important influence on the conservationist views of his nephew, Theodore Roosevelt.  Green blind-stamp patterned cloth boards bright and clean with faded gilt lettering to spine.  Brown endpapers.  Light pencil marks/underlining in parts of text, otherwise unmarked and unfoxed.  VG

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[Create Link to EC History section]

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SETON, Ernest Thompson (Aka SETON-THOMPSON, Ernest) (1860-1946)

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A List of the Mammals of Manitoba

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1886.  Pamphlet - paper covers.  First.  Published by The Manitoba Scientific and Historical Society.  Inscribed (twice).  Very rare.

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Seton's first publication, published under the name Ernest E. Thompson.  Presentation copy of exceedingly rare first published work, pre-dating his second work by five years.  26 pages, plus errata slip laid in, consisting mainly of field notes along with six illustrations by Seton, including one repeated on cover.  Below his name on the cover, he is described as a "Former Resident of Carberry [see below] and a Corresponding Member of the Society."  Inscriptions on front cover read:  "Montagu Chamberlain Esq. with the writer's compliments." and "To J.B. McGee.  This is my first publication under the pseudonym [Ernest E. Thompson - using printed authorship on cover].  Cordially, E.T. Seton."  Laid in is a 1945 letter from David Randall of Scribner's Books, offering this copy to a customer in Washington.  Randall calls it a "honey" and writes that it "must be of excessive rarity" as Jacob Blanck, author of the Bibliography of American Literature, had never seen a copy.  Per seller, this copy sold at auction at Parke-Bernet in 1977 for $1400.  Also included are two bookseller catalogue entries, one for this volume from 1983 and one for another presentation copy dated 1988.  Housed in custom clamshell box with leather label.  Early 20th century bookplate of Charles F. Nugent, Jr. on inside front cover.  Backstrip chipped, slight tear to rear cover.  Condition arguably immaterial but G+?.

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Montagu Chamberlain (1844-1924) was a Canadian-American businessperson, naturalist and ethnographer who in 1883 co-founded the important American Ornithologists' Union (referred to often on this site), having been a member and editor for the Nuttall Ornithological Union.  He published several books, including A Catalogue of Canadian Birds (1887) and Birds of Greenland (1889) (Neither book is in the Collection, nor is the dictionary mentioned below).  He spent time with Native American tribes in Maine and drafted the first significant English-Maliseet dictionary.  Per Wikipedia entry on Chamberlain:  "Although Maliseet is still spoken today by around 1,500 people, Maliseet Vocabulary has become a valuable source on the Maliseet language, as the first published, substantial characterization of the language, recorded at a relatively early date.  The book includes translations for about 1,600 Maliseet words; perhaps owing in part to Chamberlain's particular interests as a naturalist and bird enthusiast, 481 of the 1.600 words are related to plants and animals, including 124 Maliseet words for different types of birds."

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The Biography of a Grizzly

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1900.  Stated first impression.  Published by The Century Co., New York.  Inscribed.

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Brown cloth boards with attractive stamped and labeled cover design.  Inscribed "With best wishes of" dated May 1900, one month after first printing.  Owner's sig on second fe.  In rare original DJ, edges worn and back with two-inch tear, but otherwise sound.  With 75 illustrations from drawings by Seton.  Some pages separating.  G+ to VG- in rare dj.

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Seton was born Ernest Evan Thompson in England of Scottish parents.  On his 21st birthday, his father handed him a bill for all expenses incurred raising him (including the fee charged by the doctor who delivered him).  Thomson did not pay it - he left, and never spoke to his father again.  In 1882, he joined his brother on a homestead outside Carberry, Manitoba, where he began to write.  He changed his name twice, first to Ernest Seton-Thompson and then to Ernest Thompson Seton.

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Seton is known as a solid naturalist who nevertheless got sucked into the "nature-faker" controversy following John Burrough's 1903 Atlantic Monthly article criticizing writers of sentimental, anthropomorphic animal stories, a controversy which eventually involved then President Theodore Roosevelt.  Seton ultimately published over 40 books, most of them exceptionally sound - he won a medal from the National Academy of Sciences, among other honors.

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Seton is even better known for his work with youth, having founded the Woodcraft Indians in 1902 (it later became the Woodcraft Rangers and continues to work with Los Angeles area youth).  Seton influenced Lord Baden-Powell, who had read Seton's The Birch Bark Roll of the Woodcraft Indians (not in Collection).  They met and shared ideas.  Baden-Powell went on to found the worldwide Scouting movement (with the help of Francis Russel Burnham), and Seton became president of the committee that founded the Boy Scouts of America and became its first Chief Scout.