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Vischer, Edward; Gudde, Erwin Gustav (Translator and Editor) : Edward Vischer's First Visit to California

California Historical Society?; Lawton R. Kennedy?, San Francisco, CA, 1940

Published in a small edition. Printed by Lawton Kennedy. Original publisher's beige paper wrappers with staple binding. Red-brown lettering printed on front cover. No lettering on spine. 7" x 10 1/4." Twenty-four pages, complete. One printed black-and-white frontispiece portrait photograph of Edward Vischer, complete. Appendix and Notes in back. Pages are virtually pristine and intact except for light age toning, a few brief pencil notations, and an almost imperceptible vertical crease running through the entire pamphlet. Covers are very clean and intact except for slight wear to extremities, a few faint marks, slight age toning, and the vertical crease on front and back. A Very Good copy. "Reprinted from Volume XIX, Number 3, California Historical Society Quarterly, September 1940." A collection of Edward Vischer's letters, reprinted herein, that he wrote during his first visit to California in 1842. Edward Vischer (1809-1878) was a German-American painter and photographer. Vischer is perhaps best-known for his pencil sketches of California made during the 1860s and 1870s. The trip described in these letters was undertaken for both business and leisure. At the time, Vischer was based in Mexico and worked for Heinrich Virmond. These letters are an invaluable source of Vischer's thoughts and experiences and a glimpse into the places and events of that time period. Vischer writes about his trip aboard the schooner California; his admiration of the California's crew members from the Pacific Islands; the rugged coastlines of Southern and Central California; Monterey's charm; his overland travel via horseback from Monterey to San Francisco; a trip by boat to Sonoma and meeting hunters, mountaineers, and an Indigenous man from the Pacific Northwest aboard this boat; meeting Guadalupe Vallejo in early Sonoma; visiting with a Franciscan monk at Mission San Francisco Solano; California Indigenous tribes; his return trip to Southern California; Santa Barbara; a frightening incident in which he thought a Hawai'ian man had been lost at sea but who was later found on another vessel; early Los Angeles; his enjoyment of California's beautiful scenery, agriculture, and food; his admiration of Californians on horseback; riders' practice of switching out their tired horses for strangers' horses and setting the latter loose to return once they reach their destination; being thrown from a poorly saddled horse and having to recuperate in Los Angeles; Mission San Gabriel; Mission San Juan Capistrano ruins; Mission San Luis Rey; and a tense experience when Micheltorena's convict soldiers were aboard the California on the first leg of the journey from Mexico to California. Erwin Gustav Gudde (1889-1969), translator and editor of this work, was a German-American professor and historian. As an undergraduate, Gudde had attended the University of California (UC Berkeley). In 1922, Gudde received his PhD in German language and literature from the University of California where, soon after, he became a faculty member until his retirement in 1956. Over the course of his career, Gudde developed an interest in the history of German Americans in California and other western states and the origins of place names. One of his most well-known books was California Place Names (1949). The printer of this book, Lawton Kennedy (1900-1980), was an American printer and noted figure of the Bay Area printing community. Kennedy worked for other well-known Bay Area printers including John Henry Nash, Jane Grabhorn's Colt Press, Albert Sperison's Black Vine Press, and Johnck & Seeger. In 1952, Kennedy opened his own printing press in San Francisco.. Book. Book Condition: Very Good. Binding: Soft cover

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