A ROYAL HIGHWAY OF THE WORLD.
Portland: Metropolitan Press, 1932. Limited first edition. Hardcover. xvii, 23 pp. Illustrated with a mounted frontispiece etching (portrait of the author); facsimile letter, 2 full-page illustrations, illuminated initial; quarto, original blue cloth. Slight scuffing to cover cloth, else fine. Very good. Item #20741
First publication in book form of a letter of some 1680 words written by Joaquin Miller in 1907 on the stationary of the Elkhorn Hotel of Canyon City, Oregon and addressed to "the Hon., the Co. Judges and Commissioners of Grant and Harney Counties." In the late 1860s Miller himself had been a judge at Canyon City, where he ". . . presided over pioneer trials, wrote verses and established a reputation for eccentricity." His letter is an eloquent complaint regarding the state of the road Miller had just traveled from Harney Valley to Canyon City - a journey of 200 miles.Text also includes the poem "Joaquin Miller Crosses the Mountains" by Howard McKinley Corning. Frontispiece etching by W. F. McIlwraith from a photograph furnished by George Melvin Miller, brother of Joaquin Miller. Edition limited to 245 copies, this #20. BAL 13880.
Price: $75.00