Auction 5: Lots 12-17

12. BARTLETT, John R. Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission...1850-1853. New York: Appleton, 1854. [2] xxii, 506 [6, ads] + [2] xvii [1] 624 pp., 16 toned lithograph plates (including 2 foldout frontispieces), numerous engraved plates and text-illustrations, folding map (General Map Showing the Countries Explored & Surveyed by the United States & Mexican Boundary Commission.... 28.8 x 49.2 cm.; 11-3/8 x 19-3/8 inches). 2 vols., 8vo, original green cloth, gilt pictorial spines. Binding and top edges darkened, light shelf wear, title-pages browned, occasional mild to moderate foxing, short tear to folding map. Increasingly difficult to find in the original Southwestern pictorial bindings illustrating saguaro cactus.

First edition. Abbey 658. Basic Texas Books 12. Clark, Old South III:272. Cowan, p. 36. Flake 325. Garrett, Mexican-American War, pp. 191-92. Graff 298: "An essential book for the Southwest." Hill, p. 18: "First thoroughly scholarly description of the Southwest." Howes B201. Plains & Rockies IV:234:1. Raines, p. 22. Wheat, Gold Regions 252; Transmississippi West 798: "Among the most important Western maps...excellent early map showing Gadsden Purchase Boundary."

"As a piece of narrative writing about the American West, Bartlett's book ranks alongside those of Frémont, Parkman, and Gregg as a classic. Within its pages is contained a panoramic view of the way of life of an entire region previously known only to a few.... For many a hammock reader...it opened up an exciting America and helped create an image of the exotic West" (Goetzmann, Army Exploration, pp. 205-06). The handsome lithographs of Mexico and the Southwest include a Texas image, Camp in Snow Storm on Delaware Creek, Texas (to be included in Holman & Tyler's forthcoming book on nineteenth-century lithographs of Texas). (2 vols.)
($400-700)

13. BARTLETT, John R. Personal Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico, California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, Connected with the United States and Mexican Boundary Commission...1850-1853. New York & London: Appleton, 1856. xxii, 506; [iii]-xvii [1, blank] 624 pp., 16 toned lithograph plates (including 2 foldout frontispieces), numerous engraved plates and text-illustrations, folding map. 2 vols. in one, thick 8vo, original black embossed sheep, gilt stamping on spine (rebacked, original spine preserved), binding worn (particularly along edges and at spinal extremities), text lightly browned, plates with mild to moderate foxing. Front hinge repaired, lower hinge cracked. Scarce in this format.

Second edition, first one-volume edition (first U.S. and British editions came out in 1854). Basic Texas Books 12B. Plains & Rockies IV:234:3.
($200-400)

 
Item 14, title page

14. BEASLEY, Gertrude. My First Thirty Years. [Paris: Contact Editions, 1925]. [2] 321 [2] pp. 12mo, original blue printed wrappers. An excellent copy in the seldom encountered original glassine protector (lightly chipped). About as fine a copy as one might ever hope to encounter. Dudley R. Dobie's interesting notes laid in.

First edition. A brutally honest autobiography by a young woman who grew up in West Texas and Abilene at the turn of the century and later joined the American expatriates in Europe. Because of its explicit content, U.S. publishers were unwilling to print the book. Consequently Robert McAlmon published this now rare edition in Paris. It is said that a large portion of this edition was confiscated by U.S. authorities because of its inflammatory nature. Dudley R. Dobie comments: "This book brought on a 'controversy.' In a letter from Frank Dobie...he told about having seen this book.... He urged me to run down copies. I did. In time I gained a total of four copies. The University of Texas Library bought a copy—then the fur began to fly!.... Senator George ('Cotten') Moffett was a member of the Texas 'Book Court of Inquiry' which quizzed me following my 'arrest' by a Texas Ranger—re Gertrude Beasley, My First Thirty Years."
($300-600)

 
Item 15

15. BERKELEY, G. F. The English Sportsman in the Western Prairies. London: Hurst & Blackett, 1861. xi [3] 431 [1] [16, ads] pp., title with vignette of buffalo, frontispiece, 9 plates. Royal 8vo, original blind-stamped and gilt pictorial purple cloth. Cloth faded (as is wont to occur with the color purple), light outer wear, top edges darkened, interior very fine, contemporary ink ownership inscription and armorial bookplate of William Robertson.

First edition. Dobie, p. 159. Graff 277. Howes B374: "Buffalo hunting around Fort Riley and western Kansas." Phillips, Sport, pp. 42-43. Plains & Rockies IV:368. Rader 349. Narrative of an avid English sportsman's hunting excursion to the Great Plains in 1859. The author frequently expresses his distaste for American "tradesmen" and "red-skinned warriors."
($200-400)

16. BINKLEY, W. C. The Expansionist Movement in Texas.... Berkeley: University of California, 1925. x, 253 pp., maps. 8vo, original grey printed wrappers. Wraps lightly soiled, internally very fine, mostly unopened.

First edition. Basic Texas Books 16: "The most comprehensive account of Republic of Texas imperialism and the eventual setting of the western borders of the state."
($50-80)

17. BOLTON, Herbert E. Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century: Studies in Spanish Colonial History and Administration. Berkeley: University of California, 1915. x [2] 501 pp., maps. Large 8vo, original navy blue cloth. Front hinge cracked, mild foxing to title.

First edition. Basic Texas Books 20: "Best English translation of six major narratives of explorations into Texas, as well as others into New Mexico, Arizona, and California. The best work of scholarship on eighteenth-century Texas." Clark, Old South I:1n. Griffin 2469. Howes B589. Rader 399. Rittenhouse 70. Steck, p. 54.
($100-200)