The Gulf Coast of Florida. Photography by Richard Riley. Introduction by John D. MacDonald.

Oblong quarto, navy blue boards (hardcover), gilt letters, unpaginated. Full-color photographic plates with captions. Fine in a Near-Fine dust jacket. From dust jacket: And at the end of it all, writes John D. MacDonald, "is a place where it is a local custom for people to gather together and watch the sunset, and applaud it. I can think of no other place where scenery is applauded." In this book we can see why. In words and images the writer and the photographer have captured the special flavor of the unspilt but vanishing Florida scene. "There will always be wild places in Florida. But as this century winds down they have become ever smaller and more rare. Even though most of the photographs were taken very recently, many of them could never be taken again in the same place of the same scenes, the same life forms." The flavor is wistful. Here are the bayous and winding creeks, the fragile wetlands of the 'Glades, birds on the wing in a stillness of earth and sky, turquoise intensities of water colors beyond white sands, high dunes, hardwoods and pines, and always the magical sunsets unfolding their rose-tinted heads of cloud after rain. Gentle places and quiet times; a sense of disappearing wonder. "We hope," says the writer, "That this book can serve some small useful purpose in showing a world that was, a world that in many parts still is, and a world that can be preserved for the future." Florida, Floridiana, Florida History, Photography, Americana, U.S.-iana. TAS.…