FARNHAM, T[homas] J[efferson] (1804–1848), Life, adventures and travels in California. To which are added the conquest of California, travels in Oregon, and history of the gold regions

FARNHAM, T[homas] J[efferson] (1804–1848).
Life, adventures and travels in California. To which are added the conquest of California, travels in Oregon, and history of the gold regions.
New York: Published by Nafis & Cornish. St. Louis, Mo.: Van Dien & Macdonald; 1849. First “Pictorial Edition!!!”

Quarto (9 1/16” x 5 11/16”, 230mm x 144mm): 14 2-64 74(–74) 84(81+χ1) 9-624 3χ5 65-684 694(–694) 70-714, binder’s blank [$1 signed; –321, 471, 661, 681; 581 signed on 582]. 280 leaves, pp. [2] (blank, frontispiece), i-iii (title, copyright, preface) iv, 5 6-468. With a wood-engraved frontispiece, title-page and 51 wood-engraved plates (one double-sided); included in the foliation but not in the pagination.

Bound in the gilt publisher’s pictorial ribbed black cloth. Presented with a framed map, “Map of the Gold Regions of California” (Wheat Transmississippi 609/Gold Region 85.2 [Ensigns & Thayer, 1849]), which is found in some copies.
Worn at the extremities, with some chips at the head and tail. Damp-ring to the front board. Gutter stain to pp. 172-3. A lovely bright copy of a book so often tanned, foxed or worse.

Thomas Jefferson Farnham (1804–1848) was a New Englander who heard the call of the West. He joined a mission to Oregon and became the captain of the Oregon Dragoons, the militarized embodiment of the Peoria Party that set out in 1839 to drive out the English fur-traders and to colonize Oregon territory (from the present Oregon/California border nearly to Alaska along the Pacific coast) for the United States. They blazed the Oregon Trail and were eventually instrumental (Farnham in particular) in the annexation of the territory.

From 1842 he published accounts of the West that electrified America and Britain. In 1844 he published his Travels in California, which form the kernel of the present item. Farnham died in 1848 but his work continued undimmed; as the treble-exclamation announcing the pictorial edition indicates, there was great demand for visual accounts of the Wild West. This illustrated edition is also the first to contain an account of the gold-producing parts of California, doing its part in driving the Gold Rush of 1849.

The map included with the book is not only rare but of signal — almost iconic — importance in the era, so brilliantly does it emphasize the gold region that would permanently realign the polarity of America. It is not integral, but is found in some copies, doubtless sold to a very few as an invaluable aid in striking it rich in the California hills.

Bradford 1630, Braislin 718, Cowan II p. 203, Garret Mexican-American War 147, Howes F49, Sabin 23868, Wagner-Camp-Becker 107:6, Wheat California Gold Region 85.2 (map), Transmississippi 609 (map).