Sep 28, 2023 - Sale 2646

Sale 2646 - Lot 64

Price Realized: $ 2,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(CALIFORNIA.) János Xántus. Levelei Éjszakamerikából [Letters from North America]. 12 tinted lithograph plates. 175, [1] pages. 8vo, publisher's cloth, minor wear; moderate foxing, early pencil notes; later number tag on rear free endpaper. Pesten [Budapest], [1858]
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Additional Details

The unauthorized first edition of letters by Jánus or John Xántus (1825-1894) an exile from Hungary who first settled in a Hungarian colony in Iowa, served in the Army in Kansas, and later found himself employed as a scientist in southern California and Baja California in the late 1850s, collecting natural history specimens for what became the Smithsonian Institution. This book includes letters written from 1852 to 1857, not intended for publication. 4 letters are dated from San Francisco and Los Angeles, in addition to letters from his travels across the continent earlier in the decade, not included in the later authorized edition, from New Orleans, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, and Missouri. A vocabulary of the Comanche and Wichita languages appears on pages 118-122. The book was edited by István Prépost, and some of the content is repurposed from Marcy's official report of the Red River. The illustrations are mostly of Plains Indians and scenery, closing with views of Los Angeles; San Gabriel Mission; and New York's Union Square. Cowan 1933, page 500; Graff 4784; Howes X1 ("aa"); Sabin 105715; Streeter sale V:3066; Wagner-Camp 316.