[Clappe, Louise Amelia Knapp Smith]

The Pioneer: or, California Monthly Magazine.  San Francisco: W. H. Brooks, Le Count, Strong, January 1854–December 1855



24 vols. (9  1/4  x 6 in.; 235 x 153 mm).  Scattered foxing, a few light contemporary pencil notations.  Original green, cream and yellow pictorial wrappers, sewn; condition varies, but generally good, with some chipping and loss to some spines, a few minor repairs, lower wrapper of September 1855 issue detached but present.  4 half blue morocco slipcases, spines gilt-lettered; some wear.

J. W. Nicholson (with his signature and his Stockton, Calif., address, 65 California Street, inscribed on most front covers) — Jennie Crocker Henderson (John Howell Books, 1979, catalogue 50, item 700)

Hart, Companion to California pp. 330–31; Howell 50: 700 (this set); Powell, California Classics, pp. 66–76; Wheat, Books of the California Gold Rush 39; Zamorano 80 69

A complete run of California's earliest magazine, which includes the first printing of the celebrated Dame Shirley letters.  "These valuable letters, published first in the old Pioneer magazine of San Francisco ... were written from the California mines by Mrs. Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe to her sister in Massachusetts in 1851 and 1852 .... The letters were written from Rich Bar on the Feather River, where the author had accompanied her husband, Dr. Fayette Clappe.  They give an entirely different picture of the conditions at the mines from that ordinarily found .... Being a cultured woman's contemporary report of experiences in the gold rush, they are unique.

"Not until 1922 were the letters reprinted in book form, when they were published by Thomas C. Russell as The Shirley Letters from the California Mines ..." (Zamarano 80).  When the present set was offered in John Howell's California catalogue 50 in 1979, the Shirley letters were assessed in these terms: "Mrs. Clappe's vivid, picturesque, and highly appealing sketches of life in the mining camps of Rich Bar and Indian Bar on the Feather River in 1851 and 1852 have influenced writers from Bret Harte to Wallace Stegner and are regarded as among the most important authentic accounts of the Gold Rush."

A fine set of "the first magazine dedicated to the culture of California ....  The Pioneer's symbolic cover picture, depicting a newly arrived family joyously looking down from the Coast Range on the Pacific, was later adopted by the California Historical Society as its emblem" (Hart). The magazine was founded by Ferdinand C. Ewer and its other contributors included Edward A. Pollack, Stephen Massett, Frank Soulé, John S. Hittell, and the first important California humorist, John Phoenic (Captain George Derby).