Californian Stories

[7] pp 8-192, pp 32 ads. The first English edition of Harte's four Californian Stories. Attractively produced as a yellowback, the illustration on the front cover shows a rescue attempt in progress, with a bearded man holding out a rope to a woman balanced uncertainly on a rocky ledge. The spine has been neatly relaid with complete text and the all-important pictorial advertisements on the front and rear endpapers. The book comes from the Gladstone family's ancestral home at Fasque in Scotland with a 'Fasque' book label on the front board and the signature of 'J R Gladstone' (British Prime Minister, W E Gladstone's older brother, John Robert Gladstone) written underneath Bret Harte's printed name on the front board. An attractive association.