Brown, John H.

Reminiscences and Incidents, of "The Early Days" of San Francisco ... Actual Experience of an Eye-Witness, from 1845 to 1850. San Francisco: Mission Journal Publishing Co., (1886)



In 8s (8 7/8 x 5 5/8 in.; 223 x 143 mm). Folding plan of downtown San Francisco. Original red cloth gilt; extremities rubbed, rear free endpaper lost. Half red morocco folding-case.

Lucilla Coplin, Piedmont, California (signature on front pastedown)

Cowan, p. 77; Graff 429; Kurutz, Gold Rush 88a; Wheat, Books of the California Gold Rush 23; Zamorano 80 10

First edition of the rollicking reminiscences of John Brown, characterized in Zamorano 80 as "a fur trader, bartender, citizen-soldier, hotel builder, capitalist, man of affairs, and author." In his introduction to the 1933 Grabhorn edition, Douglas Sloane Watson notes that "Every search for the true picture of San Francisco's beginnings as a city leads finally to John Henry Brown's "Early Days."