[4], iv, 197 pp. (16mo) grey cloth decorated and lettered in gilt, top edge gilt, others untrimmed. One of 500 copies in the small paper edition.
Association copy with the inscription "Compliments - Lillie H. Coit 5, Palace Hotel Aug 1st, '96". Laid in is a manuscript letter from Coit to an unknown recipient [possibly Willis Polk who had just moved to San Francisco in that year]. "I send you 'The City Beautiful,' (by Joaquin Miller, dedicated to me) as you are doing your level best to make this 'The City Beautiful'—I don't mean by painting it red, but architecturally—now I find this a nice & well turned compliment & so will cease writing. Many thanks, believe me. Yours, Lille Hitchcock Coit, 5". The City Beautiful Movement was a reform philosophy of North American architecture and urban planning that flourished during the 1890s and 1900s with the intent of introducing beautification and monumental grandeur in cities—a philosophy that brings Coit tower to mind.
The laid in letter mentions that the book had been dedicated to Lillie H. Colt by Miller, as is confirmed on the dedication page—bordered with the number 5. The significance of "5" in both her inscription and Miller's dedication is as follows. At age 15, in 1858, she reportedly witnessed the Knickerbocker Engine Co. No. 5 respond to a fire call on Telegraph Hill when they were shorthanded, and helped them get up the hill ahead of other competing engine companies. Sources differ on whether this happened while she was coming home from school or coming from a rehearsal for a wedding. She was thereafter treated as a "mascot" of the firefighters, and after her return from travel in Europe, in October 1863, she was made an honorary member of the engine company. She then rode along with the firefighters when they went to a fire or were in parades, and attended their annual banquets. When volunteer firefighters were ill, she visited the sickbed, and when they died, Coit sent flowers and attended the funerals. She continued this relationship with firefighting throughout her life, and after her death her ashes were placed into a mausoleum with a variety of firefighting-related memorials.