Phénix

1903 · 48528 — New York: D. Appleton and Company 1903. Hardcover. Illustrations by E.W. Kemble. Introduction by John Kendrick Bangs. Small 8vo. Yellow cloth with red lettering and red-bordered gilt lettering and black and red pictorial stamping. xvi 332pp 4pp ads. Top edge gilt. Frontispiece small- and full-page line drawings. Near fine. Nonauthorial Christmas 1903 gift inscription on front flyleaf; spine ever-so-faintly toned. Exceptionally tight and handsome first of this edition. Phoenix was the pseudonym of George H. Derby 1832-61 a West Point classmate of Ulysses S. Grant and Army lieutenant best remembered as an early California humorist publishing newspaper sketches under the name "John Phoenix" nicknamed "Squibob." First published in London in 1855 and the U.S. in 1856 this edition features Kemble's delightful illustrations. Phoenix specialized in cutting the local San Francisco gentry and their ways down to size -- some sample chapters convey his style: "Official Report of Professor John Phoenix A.M." "Pistol Shooting -- A Counter Challenge" "Phoenix at the Mission Dolores" "Squibob in San Francisco" "Sandyago -- A Soliquy" "Fourth of July Celebration in San Diego" "The San Francisco Antiquarian Society and California Academy of Arts and Sciences" "The Ladies' Relief Society" "Squibob Abhors Street Introductions" "Phoenix in San Diego" and much more. Quite a superb copy and in outstanding pictorial binding. BAL 762. D. Appleton and Company hardcover