THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE WEST COAST of the United States.
W.G. Wright
Hardcover
(The Whitaker & Ray Company, March 15, 1972)
Pp. 257, viii, 32 full page color plates each with numerous images of butterflies. Gilt-decorated wine red cloth with gilt-tooled red morocco spine label, sm 4to. This is the very rare first edition, published in 1905, of which less than 100 copies survived the great fire of 1906. Quoting from a printed pink label attached to the rear endpaper "At the great fire in San Francisco, April 18, 1906, all of the items going to make up this book ... consisting of everything in the printers' and binders' hands, and finished books in the custody of the publishers, all were destroyed. And as the stereotype plates from which the book was printed were lost with the rest, the book cannot be printed anew. Only a few dozen copies of the book were in the author's hands in another city at the time of the fire, and so were not burned." The text continues discussing how the price for the book was raised to $10 due to the short supply of the book. As a supplement to this statement, a letter is tipped in at the rear from the author, W.G. Wright, to Fordyce Grinnell (father of Joseph Grinnell) discussing a review of the book and explaining the tragedy of the loss of the book in the great San Francisco fire. Wright again points out in his own hand-writing in this letter that only a "few dozen copies" of the book survived the remained after the fire. Finally this book is from the library of entomologist John A. Comstock with his bookplate and signature on the front pastedown and his ink name stamp on the free endpaper. A very unusual association copy of an exceedingly rare volume.