Ridge's poems were collected posthumously and are here published by his widow, with a mounted albumen photograph of the author for the frontispiece; the preface includes a detailed account of the assassination of his father, John Ridge. The book was printed by Edward Bosqui & Co., considered San Francisco’s finest 19th-century printer.

Binding:  Chestnut-brown morocco presentation binding with bevelled edges, covers framed in black rules, with author and title in gilt in nice frames on each board (gilt stamping the same as seen on the cloth binding). Binding by Bosqui, with that firm’s ticket.

•  Cowan p. 533; Graff 3504; Kurutz, California Books Illustrated with Original Photographs 1856–1890, 43; Miles & Reese, Creating America, 122; Norris 3270.   Binding as above; rebacked, original spine somewhat unartfully reapplied, sides scuffed. Scratched markings on pastedowns; title-page and a few others with old stains. A very decent copy, with the presentation binding copies being rare.  (39603)

The volume is illustrated with woodcut arms on the verso of the second title-page and bears many woodcut initials and tailpieces throughout This copy retains Ortuño's engraved frontispiece (often missing) of St. Francis.

Binding:  A very interesting contemporary Mexican sprinkled calf binding, probably by a “provincial” binder. Covers with a single gilt-roll border having a modest corner device in each corner, that tool reused to form a four-part center design on each cover; same gilt-roll used on spine to accent the slightly raised bands and form spine compartments, one of these compartments with a spine-label and one having the covers' corner device gilt-tooled at its center. Board edges also with a gilt-roll design; all edges green. Highly unusual endpapers of a pattern in blue and red resembling images of strings in string theory: This is the first time we have ever seen this pattern.

•  Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 56; Viñaza 341; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2286; Palau 269110; Medina, Mexico, 4500; DeBacker-Sommervogel, VI, 210–211; Sabin 71488; Leclerc 2334; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 2891.   Binding as above, in good condition; light offsetting from it to early and late leaves. A few small areas of discoloration where candle wax spilled on a page, and a bit of other light toning; p. 135 with “Per Omnia Secula Seculorum” neatly written in bottom margin. Very good.  (34611)

This work discusses his humility, obedience to the Agustinian rule and vows, and in part his work among the native population.

This second edition additionally contains Lucas Centeno's compilation of the documents relating to the reinterment of Fr. Basalenque's remains in the Convento de Santa María de Gracia in Valladolid (now Morelia), Mexico.

•  Sabin 75779; Palau 287455; Medina, BHA, 3996.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of ties. Rodent damage to binding (bits devoured especially at back cover fore-edge) and some nibbling to lower edge of closed book (not anywhere near the text). Clean, solid, unwormed copy.  (28616)

Binding:  Publisher's brown cloth, front cover with black-stamped hunting scene and title framed in gilt, spine with gilt-stamped title.

•  Binding as above, corners and spine head lightly rubbed. Ex–social club library: call number on endpaper, rubber-stamp on title-page, no other markings. Pages clean.  (27113)

Provenance: “Miss Carrie G. Skinner, Fort Ann Village, NY.”

•  American Imprints 43-4820; Sabin 93131.   Publisher's violet cloth, covers blind-stamped with central gilt-stamped urn vignettes, spine with gilt-stamped title and decorations; cloth sunned especially at edges and spine, corners bumped, front joint with small spots of old insect damage. Front free endpaper with early pencilled ownership inscription, as above. Foxed; a few poems with early pencilled annotations (brief) — one is, simply, “Splendid.”  (27650)

Provenance:  Contemporary signature of José Mata on title-page; 19th- or early 20th-century stamp of the Redemptorist house in Cuernava: “Domus Cuernavacensis, C.SS.R. ”

•  Medina, Mexico, 142; H. de Leon Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2693; Palau 327485; Sabin 94353; Garcia Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 74; Vinaza 334; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3600. Not in Ugarte, Obras escritas en lenguas indigenas de Mexico.   Bound as above with edges and joints rubbed, sides lightly scuffed, spine with label chipped and extremities pulled; text block skewed in binding. Modern paper at end to pad the binding where a second text was removed; new rear endpapers. Some captions and catchwords (more of the former) affected but never taken by the binder's knife, with some sidenotes touched also; acrostic leaf closely cropped at bottom, costing a small arc of the circle but nothing else. Foxing and staining, never severe but noteworthy in margins of four early leaves; light soiling. An early hand has inked indexing indicia in the margins of three pages, to aid in finding passages of interest. Very good.  (39574)

•  Viñaza 355; García Icazbalceta, Apuntes, 73; Medina, Mexico, 5187; Sabin 94355; Palau 327486; Maggs, Bibl. Amer., 4678; Newberry Library, Ayer Indians, Huastec, 15; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 3801.   Contemporary limp vellum lacking the leather ties. An attractive, crisp copy and only the fourth complete copy of this work we have seen on the market in 35 years.  (33590)

The treaty states that the United States will pay each family thirty dollars annually for twenty years for their decisions to “withdraw from the route overland already established,” ceasing all warfare with other groups, and to settle future disputes by using the president as an arbitrator. The government promises that it will provide protection from “annoyance or molestation on the part of whites or Indians” should members of the group settle permanently to engage in agricultural pursuits, and offers further incentives for their doing so.

It was ratified 5 March 1866 and later proclaimed by President Johnson on March 17.

•  Eberstadt 130.   Folded sheets, light age-toning, gently chipped along edges; light pencilling on upper margin of title-page.  (36650)

The treaty states that the United States will pay each family thirty dollars annually for twenty years for their decisions to “withdraw from the route overland already established,” ceasing all warfare with other groups, and to settle future disputes by using the president as an arbitrator. The government promises that it will provide protection from “annoyance or molestation on the part of whites or Indians” should members of the group settle permanently to engage in agricultural pursuits, and offers further incentives for their doing so.

It was ratified 5 March 1866 and later proclaimed by President Johnson on March 17.

•  Eberstadt 130.   Folded sheets, light age-toning, gentle chipping along edges; light pencilling on upper margin of title-page, bottom corner of same chipped away.  (36651)

This is a copy of the first edition. The cataloguers at the John Carter Brown Library note: “Two concurrent editions of this work exist: in the first the title page reads “S. Antonio de Padua”; in the other it reads “San Antonio de Padua.” Significant typographical, diacritical, and resetting differences, as well as a lack of printed errata on leaf [3] verso, 1st count, exist in the second edition.

(In 1995 Bill Reese & PRB&M partnered in acquiring a number of important colonial-era Mexican books and manuscrpts. Among them was a copy of this 1673 Vetancurt Nahuatl grammar, and PRB&M wrote the explanation of the work's importance that is used above. Because it is the joint property of the William Reese Company & PRB&M, you may see it used in either firm's catalogues and on-line listings, neither of us pilfering from the other.)

Provenance: Very earlymanuscript ownership inscription of Manuel Bardon in Nahuatl on title-page; slightly later ownership signture of Fray Alonso de Escamilla on the recto of the first leaf of the approval (i.e., aprobacion); later marcas de fuego of the Convento de San Francisco de Mexico on top and bottom edges.

•  Viñaza 204 (failing to note error in foliation, as do all bibliographies except Graff); Medina, Mexico, 1103; Newberry Library, Indian Linguistics in the Edward E. Ayer Collection, Nahuatl 237; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 80; H. de León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2816; Sabin 99385; Pilling 4002. Graff 4475 (this copy; giving correct collation); Ugarte, Obras escritas en lenguas indigenas de Mexico, 422. On the marcas de fuego, see: Sala, Marcas de fuego, p. 7; and Catálogo Colectivo de Marcas de Fuego (BF 12053). On Vetancurt, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 118, frames 17–36 and 73–74.   Contemporary limp vellum with remnants of leather ties, minor wear; black- and red-printed waste-paper endpapers from a roman breviary; minor dampstaining. Wear and some staining to the last four leaves. Overall a very good copy.  (39462)

Bedmar y Narvaez printed the title-page in black and red and the text is in double-column format. This copy bears both the engraved “frontispiece” and the black and red title-page, but, as usual, not the very rare colophon.

Although touted as “Primera parte” on the title-page, there were no further parts; this Historia is complete, “all published.”

•  Palau 366681; Medina, Biblioteca hispano-americana, 2051; Sabin 99643; Leclerc 1546; Salvá 3422; Heredia 3407; Alden & Landis, European Americana, 701/262. On Villagutierre, see: Archivo biográfico de España, Portugal, e Iberoamérica, fiche 1019, frames 213–16. 19th-century Spanish sheep (“pasta española”), covers abraded and with pinhole-type worming to spine; loss of lower inch of spine leather to insects. Browning to text due to impurities in water during paper manufacture. Small insect damage to margins of first four leaves, not touching any text; similar small damage in inner margins of last four leaves. Over all, a decent copy of a scarce work.  (13286)

17th-century Mexican imprints are ever increasingly difficult to find, and those produced in Puebla (as opposed to Mexico City) are the most difficult of all. This important treatise isonly the second complete copy we have had in our stock in more than 30 years of dealing in Mexicana.

Curiously, there are two issues of this sole edition. After the work was printed but before all copies were sold or distributed, a two-leaf insert was printed that begins “Copia de carta escrita por . . . Don Fray Francisco Nunez obispo de Chiapa” and concerns idolatry in the Yucatan. Some few copies (e.g., those at Library of Congress and New York Public) have these added two leaves. Medina did not know of them and they are not present in the copies at the John Carter Brown, the Bancroft, Tulane, or Beinecke Libraries. Offered here isa complete copy of the first issue, i.e., without the later added letter.

Provenance: Marca de fuego on closed bottom edges of the Hospital de Convalecientes de Nuestra Señora Belén de Puebla.

•  Medina, Puebla, 153; Sabin 99693; Palau 368931; Viñaza 232; León-Portilla, Tepuztlahcuilolli, 2827; Ugarte, Lenguas indigenas de Mexico, 427; Pilling, Proof-sheets, 4038; García Icazbalceta, Lenguas, 164.   Contemporary limp vellum, lacking the ties, modern lettering in ink (old style) on spine; binding a little small for the textblock. Worming at inner margins, occasionally into text, touching and occasionally costing letters but no whole words; waterstaining sometimes barely noticeable, other times like a tea stain. We'd rate it good++. Complete, with the sometimes missing full-page woodcut of the Cruxifixion.  (34384)

•  Palau 95528. Original printed wrappers with a little tattering and a small chip from the base of the spine; light waterstaining in the outside margins of some leaves and title-page with some staining in the inside margin, not affecting printed area. Wrappers, edges, first and last leaves with smoke discoloration; many upper margins with intrusion of same. (3312)

In 1820 the Dwight Mission was established among the Western Cherokee in Arkansas Territory, already resettled from Georgia, and when the tribe was forced to move west again to Indian Territory in 1828, the mission went with them — reestablishing itself on Sallisaw Creek.

The Rev. Worcester who compiled this volume was the “Worcester” in Worcester vs. Georgia, 1832, a landmark if ultimately impotent Indian rights case that ended in the Supreme Court's affirming Cherokee right of title to land in that state.

•  Hargrett, Gilcrease-Hargrett Catalogue of Imprints, p. 79.   Publisher’s purple wrappers, spine and edges sunned; front hinge (inside) reinforced some time ago with cellophane tape. Pages age-toned, otherwise clean.  (39606)

•  Sabin 106302n.   Publisher's textured cloth in a brick color, hinges (inside) cracked; ex-library with a bookplate, no stamps. Clipping about this “quaint” dictionary affixed to a blank, with offsetting to endpaper verso opposite; interior clean.  (31960)