PBA Galleries

xii, [2], 341 pp. Illustrated with 9 lithograph plates. 7¾x4½", later full straight-grain morocco ruled in gilt, spine tooled & lettered in gilt, gilt inner dentelles, marbled endpapers, top edges gilt. First Edition.

This is the first book in English on California to be written by a resident of the province. Alfred Robinson came to California as a super-cargo in 1829, and married into the de la Guerra family, one of the most prominent in the territory. Zamorano maintains the book is "unquestioned as an authority, his work is undoubtedly the most important book for the period it treats... Robinson originally intended his Life in California to be a preface for Fray Boscana's Chinigchinich [the appended historical account of the Indians of Alta-California], but in the end the `tail wagged the dog' and for historians the Life in California is vastly more important." Cowan p.536-7; Graff 3525; Howes R363; Sabin 72048; Zamorano Eighty 65.