Lyman, Albert

Journal of a Voyage to California, and Life in the Gold Diggings, and also of a Voyage from California to the Sandwich Islands. Hartford, Connecticut: E. T. Pease; New York: Dexter & Bro.; Boston: Redding & Co., 1852



12mo (7 5/8 x 4 3/4 in.; 196 x 121 mm). 2 full-page woodcut illustrations after sketches by Lyman, numerous woodcut vignettes in text; some scattered soiling and marginal foxing. Publisher's blind-paneled red cloth, spine simply gilt-lettered "California," yellow endpapers, plain edges; spine chipped and repaired with minor loss, extremities rubbed. Half red morocco slipcase, chemise.

Cowan, p. 400; Forbes, Hawaiian 1887; Kurutz, Gold Rush 411; Streeter sale 5:2715; Vail, Gold Fever, p. 20; Wheat, Books ... Gold Rush 129

First edition of an "important and very scarce California gold rush narrative" (Forbes). Lyman, a member of the Connecticut Mining and Trading Company, went to the California gold fields not as a prospector but as a storekeeper. Lyman's diary was published without his knowledge by his proud parents. The preface notes that his original manuscript (now lost) was "very fully illustrated with graphic pencil sketches, of great artistic skill and beauty, a few of which only are transferred to the printed copies." Just the two full-page woodcuts ("Schooner General Morgan at anchor under the lee of Cape Froward," and "Rio Janeiro") seem to be taken from the diary; the remainder are stock cuts, principally of exotic animals and sailing vessels.