California and its Gold Regions; with a Geographical and Topographical View of the Country, Its Mineral and Agricultural Resources. Prepared from Official and Other Authentic Documents; with a Map of the United States and California, Showing the Routes of the U.S. Mail Steam Packets to California, also the Various Overland Routes by Robinson, Fayette - 1849

New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1849. First Edition. 144p., plus large folding frontispiece map. Original printed yellow wrappers. Spine repaired and reinforced, wear soiling, and fraying to wrappers. Bookplate on verso of front wrapper (see below). Errant printing to lower right corner of titlepage, light tideline in lower right corner of textblock, occasional foxing and tanning, map with two closed tears at margin. Very good. Untrimmed. In folding chemise with half orange morocco slipcase, spine gilt. First Edition. 144p., plus large folding frontispiece map. A Pioneering Gold Rush Work: Cowan's Copy. This is famed California bibliographer Robert Ernest Cowan's copy, with his bookplate on the verso of the front wrapper. Cowan (1862-1942) compiled the most-used bibliography on significant California books, and collected a wide array of materials on early California history that later formed the nucleus of the UCLA Department of Special Collections' holdings in Californiana. According to Wheat, this is "One of the best of the early books on California printed for gold seekers." Robinson, who had produced a book on the Mexican War shortly before, drew on both official and unofficial sources for this book. Kurutz calls this work "a fine anthology of several of the earliest reports of the gold discovery, conditions in California, history of the region, and ways to reach the diggings....The excellent map is important for delineating the various sea and overland routes to California." The gold region is tinted yellow on the map, as well as on the inset "Map of the Gold Region," and the overland routes are drawn in blue. Among the sources drawn on are reports by Mason, Fremont, Larkin, Emory, and Kearny, as well as newspaper accounts. Robinson discusses several routes to California, recommending the northern Overland Trail as the best Howes, Kurutz, and Sabin note two issues, of 137 and 144 pages, of which this is the latter, printed with an appendix on pages 125-144. This copy does not include the frontispiece view of San Francisco which Howes notes is "sometimes found, inserted, but was not issued with the book." The rear wrapper contains an interesting advertisement from New York publisher Stringer and Townsend, directed to "Emigrants to California!" and alerting them that they have "the most extensive and varied assortment of romances, novels, and useful books that can be found in the country. To all starting for California these books will be sold at prices so surprisingly low, that an armful may be purchased for a very trifling sum. As an article of merchandise there can be nothing safer or better than books." Along with being interesting in the marketing of this and other books to California emigrants, it is rather uncommon to find this title in its original wrappers. Howes R366, "B"; Wheat Gold Rush 168; Wheat Gold Regions 70; Wheat Transmississippi 591; Graff 3527; Cowan, p.537; Kurutz 539a; Sabin 72070