Manuelo's Narrative: California Three Hundred and Fifty Years Ago, Translated from the Portuguese By a Pioneer

San Francisco: Samuel Carson & Co, 1888. Hardcover. Good. 16mo 6" - 7" tall. Sturdy, attractive, tightly bound, internally clean hardcover copy, with lightly bruised and scuffed tips, neat and tidy paste-downs, and decorated endpapers; not ex-library, with neither highlighting nor underlining. Published by Samuel Carson & Company, printed by C.T. Dillingham, San Francisco & New York, 1888. A second printing of the First Edition, having been "translated from the Portuguese" (yeah, right) and published in this edition the year prior, featuring full gilt-embossed light brown-colored cloth, with some bumping to and scuffing of spine head and foot. The gilt illustration is of a Portuguese conqueror seated on a rock, perhaps a loose head at his side, definitely, a California bear and sword at his side, too, with two Portuguese ships in the bay. 333 pp., and indexed fully. A fine frontis illustration in photogravure of who appears to be a Jesuit priest taking down Manuelo's "Narrative," as it were, and bibliographic sources at hand suggest that the author was one Cornelius Cole, a Californian lawyer (1822-1924). Between pp. 141 and 186 lies a rather extraordinary poem in doggerel verse "relating" the arrival of the "San Carlos" to the area and the eventual founding of whole villages and towns. The author was key in the founding of the Republican Party in California, was involved in financing local newspapers, and the origins of the fortunes of the Crocker Brothers, Edwin and Charles, and Leland Stanford, for good measure.Member, I.O.B.A., C.B.A., and adherent to the highest ethical standards. Additional postage may be required for oversize or especially heavy volumes, and for sets.