Peninsular California: Some Account of the Climate, Soil, Productions, and Present Condition Chiefly of the Northern Half of Lower California
New York: Harper & Brothers, 1888. First Edition. Illustrated with black and white plates, two maps. Original cloth over boards. Octavo. 130 pages (plus 6 pages of publisher ads).
Carl I. Wheat's copy, with his bookplate and pencilled ownership signature and date at top fore corner of front free endpaper. Additionally, there are two bookplates of Frederick H. Rindge [Jr.] to recto and verso of front free endpaper. Wheat was a famous California bibliophile and compiler of the bibliography "Books of the California Gold Rush," 1949. Rindge was the son of Frederick Hastings Rindge, Sr., owner of the 13,330 acre Rancho Topanga Malibu Sequit.
Nordhoff's book is a promotional survey of Baja California on behalf of the International Company of Mexico, a U.S. company that owned over 13 million acres in northern Baja. Nordhoff combines vivid descriptions and boosterism to promote the area as a fertile frontier for American settlers.
Bound in dark green cloth over boards with gilt-stamped titles to spine and upper board, blind-stamped ornamental borders to both boards and spine. Minor extremity rubs and shallow bumps, else fine.
Item #1919
Price: $250