West Wind: The Life Story Of Joseph Reddeford Walker, Knight Of The Golden Horseshoe

WATSON, DOUGLAS S. [EDITOR]

Publication: Percy H Booth, 1934, Los Angeles

First edition. Quarto. Limited to 100 copies. Signed by Percy H. Booth on front fly leaf. Original brown morocco and boards, 109 [3] pp., prologue, folding map of Walker's explorations, plates, a number of illustrations by Frederic Remington, chapter decorations by Lawrence A. Patterson. Folding map titled "Map To Accompany West Wind / Showing the Explorations and Trials Made and Followed by Joseph Reddeford Walker." Compiled and Drawn by Owen C. Coy. "Manuscript of Douglas S. Watson's biography of mountain man and scout Joseph Reddeford Walker (1798-1876), who helped blaze the California Trail. The biography traces Walker's early life in the southeast, his frequent travels throughout the Midwestern and Western United States (many of them with Captain Benjamin Bonneville), his participation in buffalo hunts and fur trapping, his expedition to California in 1833, his interactions and confrontations with California Indians, and his later trips to and settlement in California from the 1840s-1870s." Appleton's says, "... he began his career as a guide on the frontier in 1822, served in that capacity with Capt. Bonneville's expedition to the Rocky mountains in 1832, conducted a party from Great Salt Lake to California in 1833, when he discovered the Yosemite lake and valley and the river that bears his name, found Walker's pass in 1834, and made many subsequent trips across the plains." 50 Great Western Illustrators: Remington 1089 says, "One of the Graphic Arts' Fifty Books of the year." Howes W 165 says, "Presents all available information on an eminent figure of the early fur-trade era, the leader in 1836, of the first trapping expedition into California over the Sierras." A bit of cosmetic touch-up to the spine and corners, else a near fine, bright, tight copy.

Inventory Number: 52858