COUNCIL FIRES: The Newsletter for Western Americana Enthusiasts

Claremont: Blumenfeld and Associates, 1991. First Edition. Soft cover. Fine. Complete series of printed and stapled newsletters, bi-monthly beginning in 1991 and ending abruptly in 1998 (47 issues). Each newsletter is up to 20pp long and nicely printed on quality paper. Blumenfeld was, as I remember, and avid collector of the best books in several Western Americana fields, exploration, cattle trade, outlaws, fur trade, etc., and wrote with knowledge, if not academic authority. In these newsletters he expounds on hundreds of Western books and cites them bibliographically, noting the several great bibliographies for each subject. I (your bookseller) subscribed to this newsletter from the beginning and kept it up to end. Blumenfeld noted that he was going to go out with a bang, but after the fifth newsletter of 1998 he "disappeared." Laid in to the first set is one sheet typed and reproduced by Blumenfeld introducing his new newsletter. Also laid in is a small ruled yellow sheet, handwritten, welcoming me as a subscriber. A few individual issues of this newsletter are on the market, but finding a complete set is very difficult. This is a worthwhile, "under the radar" resource that I suspect most Western history collectors and many dealers have never heard of.