Texan Ranch Life with Three Months through Mexico in a Prairie Schooner (1894)

This sought-after title was recently reprinted in the United States more than 70 years after its original publication. It is today rarely seen in its original London edition. Although only three rubber stamps remain as reminders, this copy spent part of its life in the Wodehouse Public Library in Dordrecht.

The original red cloth-boards are sound, though rubbed and worn at the corners. The book has been repaired with a matching (but untitled) spine and reinforced endpapers. All edges are tinted red. The binding is now tight and the book is internally clean and unfoxed. There are two ownership names in pen on the front free endpapers.

xi + 363 pp + frontispiece and more than a dozen other inserted b/w letterpress plates, as well as line drawings in the text.

The book relates Mary Jaques's 26-month visit to North America which began in Liverpool in 1889 and ended in Hull in 1891. The visit had been postponed since 1880, when she had originally been invited to a ranch in Colorado. Some of the 34 chapter titles: New York; Niagara to San Antonio; The History of the Alamo; From San Francisco to Salt Lake; The "Prairie Schooner" Starts; The Aguador; and Deer Hunting with "Buffalo Dick".

This is an attractive, sound copy of a justifiably famous travel book.