Beschreibung:

Title: El-Dorado Schilderungen einer Reise über Panama nach Californien und des Ausenthalts daselbst, sowie der Zustande, der Eigenthumlichseiten des Lebens, des commerciellen Berkehrs, des Klimas u. zu San Francisco, Monterey u. in den Golddistricten... Author: Taylor, Bayard Place: Weimar Publisher: B.F. Voigt Date: 1851 Description: viii, 176 pp. With 2 folding lithographed maps; 1 folding plate (in facsimile). (12mo) 19x12 cm (7½x4¾"), modern speckled calf, spine ruled in gilt, morocco lettering piece. First German Edition. First German, and first German language, edition of Bayard Taylor's gold rush classic, Eldorado, or Adventures in the Path of Empire, published in English the preceding year. Though it does not contain the charming tinted lithographs of the first edition, this is the first edition to contain maps. The two maps, based on Duflot du Mofras and first appearing in Hartmann's Geographisch-statistischen Beschreibung von Californien, Weimar, 1849, are "Californien," showing the west from the Oregon border to the tip of Baja, with New Mexico and the Rocky Mountains, Sonora (Mexico), etc., with inset at lower left of North and South America; it measures 40.5x28.3 cm. And "Die Wichtigsten Häfen und Rheden, sowie dei Goldregion von Californien," with 9 small insets including the Sacramento Valley with mines indicated; San Francisco Bay Area; harbors and bays of Monterey, San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Pedro, etc. Overall it measures 36.3x23.8 cm. The folding plate, showing a rocker box for placer mining, is in this copy in facsimile. The work is quite scarce - Kurutz locates only three copies, at U.C. Berkeley; UCLA; and Yale. With a letter from bookseller Michael Heaston, from whom Warren Heckrotte acquired the book, about its provenance: "The German Taylor El Dorado came from a collection that was formed over 30 years by a collector living in Germany who sought German Americana very aggressively. The only copy he had seen offered." Provenance: Heaston, 7/99 References: Kurutz 618h; Maps: Wheat Gold Region 94 and 95 Lot Amendments Condition: The text appears to have been washed, light library rubberstamps on tite page and verso. Very good in fine modern binding. Item number: 265801