About this Item
4to (11 7/8 x 9 3/8 inches): [10], xiv, [1], 494, [2] pages; includes subscribers list (pp. [5]-[10]), engraved vignette title-page of the Colorado River, 7 chromolithographed plates mounted on card and 6 tinted lithographed plates (all after Möllhausen), folding engraved map after Henry Lange, 10 text woodcuts (occasional browning and light spotting, slightly heavier on title page). Bound in original publisher s black cloth, title stamped in gilt to front cover, the smooth spine elaborately decorated in gilt (expertly rebacked with original pictorial spine overlaid on new cloth). FIRST EDITION OF MÖLLHAUSEN S CELEBRATED VOYAGE TO THE WESTERN UNITED STATES, COMPLETE WITH ALL LITHOGRAPHED PLATES. Möllhausen, a Prussian artist, who visited the United States three times in the 1850s, experiences which gave Möllhausen the material and experiences he used to produce illustrations, diaries, and fiction for nearly fifty years. His works made him enormously popular with Germans of all ages and classes, and he has become known as "the German Cooper." After arriving in the United States in 1849 and working in the Midwest, in 1851 Möllhausen traveled through the Plains to Fort Laramie with Prince Paul of Württemberg. He returned to Germany in 1852 with a shipment of wild animals for the Berlin zoo and met Alexander von Humboldt. He soon became a favorite of the old explorer and, bearing a recommendation from Humboldt, returned to the United States, where he joined Lt. Amiel Weeks Whipple s Pacific Railroad survey of the Thirty-fifth parallel as "topographer or draughtsman." The party traveled from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Pueblo de los Angeles in 1853-54. Möllhausen made several illustrations in the Texas Panhandle that appear in Whipple's report" (Doherty). "A Diary" is Möllhausen s separate account of this expedition with Whipple. (Kathleen Doherty for Texas State Historical Association). REFERENCES: Wagner-Camp 305:1; Mintz 582; Streeter Sale 5:3135; Howes M713; Wheat, Books of the Gold Rush 145; Graft 2852; Rader 2420; Smith 6909; Farquhar, Colorado River 19b; Sabin 49914; Wheat, Maps of the California Gold Region 268; Wheat, Mapping the Trans-Mississippi West 955. Seller Inventory # 72JFP027
Contact seller
Report this item
