Estimated Price:

   $   

Realized Price:

   $   

What is this symbol? This symbol indicates that this auction house has NOT verified this price result.

Register or log in to view price data

Title: History of the Pacific States of North America
Author: Hubert Howe Bancroft
Publisher: A. L. Bancroft & Company
Printing Year: 1882-1890
Volumes: Volumes I-XXVIII, XXXI-XXXIV, and two additional works by Bancroft

Notes: Bound in brown cloth with gilt embossing, this antique set is a scarce collection from Bancroft's famous thirty nine volume set on the Pacific states of North America. This ex-library set includes volumes on Central America, Mexico, Northern Mexico States, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, California, Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, the Northwest Coast, Popular Tribunals, Essays and Literary Industries. This collection also includes two other books by Bancroft, California, Inter Pocula and California Pastoral, both published in 1888.

Hubert Howe Bancroft was born in Granville, Ohio, on May 5, 1832. After working for some time in the Buffalo, New York, book store owned by his brother-in-law, George H. Derby, Bancroft went to California in 1852 to establish a West Coast outlet for the shop. In 1855, after selling the initial stock, he went east and returned with sufficient books and stationery to open a San Francisco store the next year. Within two years the firm began to grow into a publishing house, issuing such items as law books and legal stationery, texts and maps for schools, and music, as well as printing colored labels for cans.
In 1860, as an outgrowth of assembling research materials for the publication of a Pacific Coast handbook, Bancroft began a collection of regional writings. This was the beginning of his astounding book collection. Within a decade he had 16,000 volumes, encompassing in area not only California and the Pacific Coast as the central focus, but also British Columbia and Alaska to the north, the Rocky Mountains to the east, and Mexico and Central American to the south, and extending back in time from the native Indian cultures of all these regions and the subsequent era of Spanish control. As Bancroft continued to acquire materials, he also planned a vast publication project of a series of histories of western North American, in the end numbering 39 volumes.

The ex-library volumes show external age/wear, with some boards and spine covers detached or splitting. Volume One has been rebound in marbled boards, with cloth taped along the spine. Overall, the volumes appear to be well bound with lightly age toned pages, and may contain water markings and other spotting or marginalia. The books measure approximately 6" x 9.25". Shipping cost (within the U.S.) for this lot will be: $75.50