Down the Colorado (Francis Farquhar's copy)
U Oklahoma P: Norman, 1965. First edition. Hardcover. Francis Farquhar's copy of this first publication of engineer Robert Brewster Stanton's account of going down the Colorado through the Grand Canyon in 1889 and 1890. Signed and dated by Farquhar on the front free endpaper, and signed by the editor of the book, Dwight Smith, on the title page. There seem to be just two notes in the text in Farquhar's hand, the more prominent a critique of a caption on a photographic plate depicting Marble Canyon. Farquhar scrawls there: "Babylon was built if wind-bricks--there is no rock there, certainly no marble. I've been there. - FPF." This was (we think) the fourth expedition into the Grand Canyon following John Wesley Powell's expeditions (his first cut short) and Clarence Dutton's geological survey. The Brown-Stanton expedition was in search of a railroad route at the river level, and the funder and leader of the expedition Frank M. Brown drowned at the head of Marble Canyon, in fact, the expedition dwindling from 16 men to eight. As the jacket puts it, "Stanton has recorded these vicissitudes in detail, weaving them into a narrative that is as vivid an exciting as the story of any other great exploration of the West." A review copy with a slip laid with a note in Farquhar's hand at top. Farquhar compiled the bibliography The Books of the Colorado River & the Grande Canyon (1953) and certainly would have been poised to review it; we don't know if he did. An accomplished mountain climber, environmentalist, author, bibliographer and fine press bibliophile, among other roles Farquhar served for several years as the president of the Sierra Club. There's a mountain named for him in Kings Canyon National Park. His History of the Sierra Nevada is a classic book, combining all of his interests. A near fine book with a little edge wear and a narrow strip of browning to some edges of the free endpapers. In a very good jacket with some light creasing to top of spine and rubbing along spine edges, wear to one corner. A nice association copy. Item #1412
ISBN: 9780806106359
Price: $475.00 save 5% $451.25