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AN AUTHOR S PRESENTATION COPY TO HIS COUSIN REP. GOUVERNEUR KEMBLE; EX-COLL. HARRISON D. HORBLIT. First edition, second issue (first illustrated). Washington: printed by Jno. T. Towers, 1851. Quarto (11" x 7 1/2", 279mm x 190mm). [Full collation available.] With 11 tinted lithographed plates and 6 folding lithographed charts. Bound in the publisher's green blocked cloth, the central vignette gilt ("MEMOIR AND MAPS OF CALIFORNIA"). Sunned at the spine, with some fraying, splits and losses. A little peripheral sunning, with bumped fore-corners and some spotting. Evenly foxed, with offsetting at the plates. Repairs verso to the first chart, with some stub tears; the charts are particularly nicely folded. Book-label of Harrison D. Horblit to the front paste-down. Presentation inscription in ink to the title-page: "For Gouverneur Kemble Esq./ with the respects of/ Cadwalader Ringgold". Cadwalader Ringgold (1802-1867) was a naval officer, attaining in 1849 the rank of Commander, from a distinguished Maryland family. It was as a lowly lieutenant in Wilkes's Exploring Expedition (1838-1842), however, that Ringgold had the opportunity to survey the West Coast. He returned in 1849 -- "when the tide of emigration was beyond all example, and when the magnificent expanse of waters groaned under the weight of commerce" (p. 5) -- and through 1850 continued to survey California, which following the gold rush had become a lodestone of Manifest Destiny. The Series of charts is a rutter -- a handbook for sailors, with visual cues (marks) for navigating difficult passages -- which will have been particularly attractive to those intending to ply the Pacific waters. The first edition of the work, published 1851, was unillustrated, and was followed in the same year by an illustrated issue (and a second unillustrated edition), as is the present volume. Demand continued strongly enough to merit four further editions in 1852. Much ink has been spilled on the number of plates present (Howes, Kurutz and Sabin calling for 8 plates). In our first (illustrated) edition, there are 11 plates. Streeter calls the plates of the first edition the best. In later editions, the 12 views on 11 plates are collapsed to 8 by doubling up several of them. In the present example the plates are as follows: 1. "View of Sacramento City from the west bank" (as frontispiece) 2. "Entrance to San Francisco" 3. "View of San Francisco from Yerba Buena Island" (a little trimmed at the lower edge) 4. "View of Monte Diablo from Garnet Island." 5. "View of Benicia from the Anchorage East of Seal Island." 6. "View of Monte Diablo from Forks of the Sacramento." 7. "Entrance to the Sacramento River" 8. "Mark for Invincible Buoy Point Smith, east end of Angel I. on with Signal Hill" and "Mark for Invincible Buoy North extreme of Marin I.s on with Clump of trees north of San Rafael" 9. "Mark for Tongue Shoal" 10. "Mark for entering the second section of the Middle Fork of the Sacramento River" 11. "Marks for entering the Sacramento and its Forks at their confluence". Gouverneur Kemble (1786-1875) was the son of Peter Kemble, whose half-brother Robert married the author's maternal aunt, Anne. Kemble was a two-term Congressman from New York, and a founder of West Point Foundry, which produced artillery from 1818. He was a renowned bachelor of New York society, entertaining Washington Irving among others at his country estate, Cockloft Hall in Cold Spring. Harrison David Horblit (1912-1988) is best known as a collector of XIXc photography; he bought the photography collection of Sir Thomas Phillipps (whose own example of the present work, incidentally, Arader has handled) and, after developing it for decades donated it to the Houghton Library at his alma mater, Harvard. Howes R 303; Kurutz 536c; Peters II pp. 112-113; Sabin 71425; Streeter Sale 2679.
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