The Overland Journey of Joseph Frankl. The First Bohemian to Cross the Plains to the California Gold Fields. Five-page Introduction by Richard Brautigan.

San Francisco::: William P. Wreden,,, 1968... First Printing of the First US Edition. A Fine copy with illustrated boards in a Fine plain white paper dust jacket. This is one of only 540 copies issued. In 1851, Joseph Frankl left Czechoslovkia and came to America to find a new life and his fortune. That new home was Wisconsin, but in 1854 he left his new home and set out for the California Gold Fields. During this mining expedition Frankl kept a diary and sent letters home. In December of 1875 he was found dead face-down in the snow, ultimately buried at Fort Klamath, Oregon. In his introduction to the personal accout of that expedition, Richard Brautigan writes, "his diary is written in a mirror-like prose that is simultaneously innocent and sophisticated and reflects a sense of gentle humor and irony." What happens between his first trip to California and his last adventure to the sunny West Coast is the subject of his accounting in this little-known gold dust adventure.