Imaginary California Gold Rush Account - With a Map.
"...as the most brazen of all literary forgeries it will ever remain an item of Californiana to be cherished" - Douglas S. Watson
First Dutch edition of Henry Vizetelly's Four Months Among the Gold-Finders of California, issued under the pseudonym of J. Tyrwhitt Brooks, M.D. Although a work of fiction, this book manages to convey an authentic idea of the Gold Rush. The fact that a Dutch edition would have been printed so quickly also shows how people the world over wanted more information about California and its gold. The book describes how the narrator's party of five accumulated more than one hundred pounds of gold, but unfortunately, they were relieved of much of their booty by enterprising highwaymen.
One of the most remarkable "imaginary voyages" since Defoe - Howes.
The frontispiece lithograph map shows most of California (all north of Temecula), with quite good detail, including Sutter's Fort located within the hand-colored gold region.
While Vizetelly had never been to California, he fabricated this convincing account based on other publications and reports. As Graff points out, this fascinating narrative was accepted as fact well into the twentieth century - Kurutz.
Vizatelly's family migrated to London from Italy in the 17th-century and established a reputation for supplying fine plate-glass, especially popular for the glass coaches of the day. The author was apprenticed to an engraver and produced many of the illustrations for the Illustrated London News. The DNB hailed him as a "pioneer of the illustrated press."
The author eventually confessed that the book was pure fiction. According to Cowan Vizetelly was assisted by David Bogue in the creation of the book.
Vizatelly had never been in California, but together with the authorities of the time and a vivid imagination managed to issue a plausible as well as entertaining work - Cowan
Interestingly, the original 1914 edition of Cowan describes the book as "one of the first works to give the results of actual experience in working in the newly discovered gold region," proving that even the most perspicacious of bibliographers can be duped.
Rarity
This Amsterdam edition is rare in the market. Only 2 examples in RBH in the last 30 years.