Les petits voyageurs en Californie.
Tours: Ad Mame et Cie, 1853.
Octavo, eight chromolithographic plates including frontispiece, some leaves thumbed (including preliminaries), a little shaken; otherwise good in original publisher's ornate gilt blocked cloth, page-edges gilt.
A Frenchman down on his luck voyages from Le Havre to America, accompanied by two boys, to search for gold in California. Intended for a younger audience and with handsome chromolithographic plates, the voyage sees the three travel to San Francisco via New York, the Gulf of Mexico and the Panama Canal and is a colourful example of the gold rushes in the international imagination. Certainly the most interesting plate depicts San Francisco bay at mid-century.
A Frenchman down on his luck voyages from Le Havre to America, accompanied by two boys, to search for gold in California. Intended for a younger audience and with handsome chromolithographic plates, the voyage sees the three travel to San Francisco via New York, the Gulf of Mexico and the Panama Canal and is a colourful example of the gold rushes in the international imagination. Certainly the most interesting plate depicts San Francisco bay at mid-century.
The work was clearly popular as Sabin notes further editions of 1857, 1858 and 1861 though these were issued in a significantly smaller format. The publisher, Mame et Cie issued other voyage accounts for younger readers including an account of La Perouse in 1852.
Gumuchian, 1692.