Rare Book Monthly
Articles - December - 2002 Issue
The Elusive Zamorano 80 Captured Again: The Volkmann Zamorano 80 under the Hammer in February
Item 30. Duflot de Mofras.
Volkmann's collection of Grabhorn Press is extensive; his collection of the Allen Press is complete. Other editions of California fine press editions swell his library, as well. The collection also includes a choice selection of California maps. As a consequence of those varied collecting activities, he had also managed to acquire many of The Zamorano 80. In 1994, Volkmann purchased several of his missing titles at the Clifford sale, including the fabled Yellow Bird. Unlike Beinecke's collection, Volkmann's was completed with a whimper rather than a bang. In the end, the only missing book was a first edition of Thomas J. Farnham’s Travels in California (1844), which had sold at the Clifford sale for just over $4,000. It was acquired from a compliant private collector who happened to have an extra copy with which he was willing to part. Ironically, it is not known exactly how the Volkmann collection began. The first Zamorano 80 title that his mother purchased is a mystery. One would like to believe it was Zamorano 1, Gertrude Atherton’s The Splendid Idle Forties (1902), in which Volkmann's mother penciled on the front pastedown this warning to all collectors: “1st ed. Rummage Sale.” The good doctor Lyman by his counsel obviously inoculated her well against certain bibliographical diseases.
The catalogue of this sale has been expertly prepared by the auctioneer, Dorothy Sloan of Austin, Texas. The catalogue itself will no doubt end up being a classic reference work in its own right, not only for the books themselves but also for California history. Each of the lots has been meticulously and carefully researched and described. Gary F. Kurutz (Director of Special Collections for the California State Library in Sacramento) and Dr. W. Michael Mathes (Honorary Curator of Mexicana at the Sutro Library in San Francisco) wrote historical essays on each of the Zamorano 80 titles. Mr. Kurutz’s essay fairly definitively settles any lingering doubts one may have about the importance of the Yellow Bird. In an unusual departure from normal procedure, Sloan has expended much time and ink describing maps and plates in some detail. In most book auction catalogues, those items present in the books are often treated as the poor cousins of the volumes themselves. Sloan has gone to considerable lengths to examine these items, to explain why they are important, and to give insight into the value they add to the text with which they are associated. (See for example the description of La Pérouse at lot 49.) An important adjunct to that research is the republication in an appendix of Mathes’ “Historiography of the Californias: Imprints of the Colonial Period, 1552-1821” from the California State Library Foundation Bulletin, No. 72 (winter & spring 2002), pp. 16-25. As is to be expected in such a catalogue, the printing and layout are done to the highest standards, and the lots are heavily illustrated with both color and black and white plates. Because the catalogue includes items that are later editions, there are considerably more than eighty lots.
Despite the achievement present in the catalogue, Sloan expresses some frustration with it. She had originally hoped that the catalogue could be more on the order of a formal bibliography. As she correctly points out, there has never been a proper descriptive bibliography done of The Zamorano 80 titles, an ironic lacuna in light of the enduring influence the work has had. Despite the bibliographical yellow brick road that beckoned this particular Dorothy, she chose not to follow it, realizing that such an extensive undertaking would require far too much time under the circumstances. Although it is difficult to imagine better hands than hers to undertake such a work, it will apparently have to wait for different ones to take up the challenge.
