109. HUTCHINGS, J[ames] M[ason]. Scenes of Wonder and Curiosity in California. Illustrated by Ninety-two Well Executed Engravings, Including the Mammoth Trees of Calaveras; Caves and Natural Bridges; The Yo-Semite Valley; The Mammoth Trees of Mariposa and Frezno; Mount Shasta; The Quicksilver Mines of New Almaden and Henriquita; The Farallone Islands; The Geyser Springs, etc. San Francisco: Hutchings & Rosenfeld, [1860]. 236 pp., 93 woodcut text illustrations (including the unlisted one on p. 33). 8vo, original brown cloth. Section of spine almost detached, spine extremities chipped, corners bumped and worn, uniform age toning, scattered foxing. With large printed Volkmann bookplate on front pastedown.

            First edition, first issue. Cowan II, p. 300. Currey & Kruska 164. Farquhar, Yosemite 4A. Greenwood 1275. Howell 50, California 538. Rocq 5208. Cf. Sabin 34045. The bibliography of this edition remains confused, although copies appearing to match this one are routinely offered as the edition stated above. For the first printing, Currey & Kruska list only 63 illustrations, and state that the pagination starts on [3]. Here there are 93 engravings in the text, and the pagination begins with [1], not [3], thereby agreeing with Farquhar. The shipboard regurgitation scene on page 184 is the graphic original. “Hutchings’ [work] provided the first book length description of the state’s natural attractions and was the first work to describe the big trees and the Yosemite region in detail” (Currey & Kruska). The fine illustrations were executed principally by Thomas Armstrong, after drawings by the Nahl brothers, Harrison Eastman, and others. On Armstrong, see Groce & Wallace and Peters, California on Stone, p. 44. The text and engravings originally appeared in the first four volumes of Hutchings’s California Magazine (1856-1860).
($150-300)

110. HUTCHINGS, James M[ason]. Wonder and Curiosity in California. Illustrated by Upwards of 100 Engravings. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. 267 [1, blank] [1] pp., 105 wood-engraved text illustrations. 8vo, early twentieth-century three-quarter tan calf over marbled boards, extra gilt spine with raised bands, gilt-lettered brown spine labels, t.e.g. Some light rubbing, else fine.

            First English edition. Currey & Kruska 164. Rocq 5208n. Sabin 34045. “Hutchings’ [work] provided the first book length description of the state’s natural attractions and was the first work to describe the big trees and the Yosemite region in detail” (Currey & Kruska).
($100-200)