The Works Of Hubert Howe Bancroft: The Native Races Of The Pacific States Of North America Volume IV: Antitquities

New York: D. Appleton and Company. Good. 1875. Leather. B&W Illustrations; This copy has a full calf binding. Both front and rear covers are mostly detached, with the exception of the cords. The spine of the book has several patches of leather chipped off. The text block is in Very Nice clean condition. There are occasional spots of foxing Throughout and there is a previous owner's ink stamped name and address on the half title page (Sam Scott, Deer Lodge). The text pages are clean and bright. The map at the front of the text is in nearly Fine condition. "In 1868, he resigned from his business in favor of his brother, A. L. Bancroft. He had accumulated a great library of historical material and abandoned business to devote himself entirely to writing and publishing history. Bancroft's library consisted of books, maps, and printed and manuscript documents, including a large number of narratives dictated to Bancroft or his assistants by pioneers, settlers, and statesmen. The indexing of the vast collection employed six persons for ten years. The library was moved in 1881 to a fireproof building and, in 1900, numbered about 45,000 volumes. He developed a plan to publish a history in 39 volumes of the entire Pacific coast region of North America, from Central America to Alaska. He employed writers and wrote some of the material himself, though he credited only himself as an author. In 1886, the publishing establishment of A. L. Bancroft & Company burned, and the sheets of seven volumes of the history he had written were destroyed. " (from Wikipedia) .