Beschreibung:

32 leaves, plus the five other accounts: 49; 33; 14; 18, [5]; [1], 26 leaves, printed on rectos only. Each account with a pale green title wrapper. (4to) contemporary moire cloth, spine gilt. First Edition. Charles H. Cummings, a New Englander who made his fortune in railroads, coal, and streetcars, made trips to the American West in private railcars in 1887 and 1890. He had accounts of those two trips privately printed in small numbers for circulation among friends, along with narratives of five other trips to Europe in the 1880’s and the 1890’s. The first western trip was made in 1887 and went through Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, with a side trip from Los Angeles to San Diego and Ensenada. The narrative of this trip focuses mostly on the return trip, with brief descriptions of Nevada, Utah, and Wyoming. His second trip west, in 1890, went to Colorado, California, Yellowstone, and the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and western Canada. A week was spend in Yosemite with a visit to the Big Trees, and there is also an account of San Francisco’s Chinatown. Yellowstone also receives a substantial description, as does the visit to Alaska. The trips to Europe each contain a detailed itinerary, and include trips to England, France, and Italy in 1883, and a more extensive trip to England, Ireland, and continental Europe in 1887-1888, 1889, 1891, and 1894. The trips are numbered sequentially, but there is no account of a “fifth trip” to Europe. This matches the copies at Yale and Brigham Young University, which also lack a fifth trip. This absence might be accounted for by posting the western trips as the “fifth” trip in the series. Not in the Eberstadt or Decker catalogues, nor in Streeter. Smith Pacific Northwest Americana 2147.