Rare Book Monthly
Articles - December - 2002 Issue
The Elusive Zamorano 80 Captured Again: The Volkmann Zamorano 80 under the Hammer in February
Item 16. Carson’s Early Recollections of the Mines
The Zamorano 80 was compiled by Phil Townsend Hanna, Leslie E. Bliss, Robert E. Cowan, Henry R. Wagner, J. Gregg Layne, Robert J. Woods, Homer D. Crotty, and Robert G. Cleland. All but Cleland and Cowan, who was ill at the time, provided commentary on the entries, which are signed with initials. Roland O. Baughman was responsible for much of the bibliographical work reflected in the apparatus. Despite the potential controversy inherent in any such selection, the group made no apologies for its choices, dismissing some titles as "meretricious." As Crotty repeatedly explained: "Our emphasis has been on distinguished books, not on books of great rarity... We do not make any claim that our selection includes the eighty most important books in the field of Californiana.... In the choice of eighty titles we are convinced that each one is distinguished in the field of Californiana." (Apologies have hardly proven necessary over the years, as libraries and individuals have validated the group's selections by opening their purses in both booksellers' shops and auction rooms.) The results of the group's deliberations were embodied in a handsome volume printed in red and black with wrappers at Pasadena on Grant Dahlstrom's Castle Press. It included 13 full-page plates and a folded frontispiece, the images for which were provided by the Huntington Library. Printed in an edition of 500 copies, the original volume is long out of print. A 1969 Kraus reprint is also out of print. A readily available, in-print edition of The Zamorano 80 is Martino's 1999 reprint edition, which, like most of his reprints, is a workmanlike affair not reflecting the splendor of the original. All of those editions are readily available at varying prices.
The same cannot be said of the contents, although many of the books routinely sell for less than $1000. Writing nearly 60 years ago, Crotty justifiably remarked about the group's selections: "No doubt, some of the books listed are of great rarity, but nearly all of them are within the means of the average collector." For better or worse, the mere act of publishing The Zamorano 80 pushed many of these books beyond the means of the “average collector,” skewed the market, and presented collectors with difficult choices. Some, such a La Pérouse, may be expensive but are still to be had. Others, such as Helen Hunt Jackson’s Ramona, were published in so many editions that finding some copy of the text is a matter of no more than a few dollars, even if the first edition at a few hundred dollars is elusive. The extremely important and distinguished 1784 Reglamento is a rare book but not unobtainable, although one is not likely to acquire a copy for the $335 that Streeter paid for his in 1937. Even the notorious book thief Stephen C. Blumberg routinely stole items listed in the publication, hoping to acquire a complete set, which he never quite did. At the Clifford sale, however, for less than $20,000, as reflected in the prices realized, a single bidder could have acquired over half of The Zamorano 80.
Others, however, are hardly to be had at any price. For example, by including as number 64 John R. Ridge’s The Life and Adventures of Joaquin Murieta, the Celebrated California Bandit, by Yellow Bird (San Francisco, 1854), the group pushed this book into legend. This book occupies a minor niche in publishing history because it was written by the first Native-American to support himself by writing. As academic understanding of it has developed, it has also become important for its depictions of how Yankees mistreated native Mexicans in California. Howes, however, dismisses the book: "First biography of this sanguinary villain, the flimsy, romanticized base on which has been built an apparently enduring hero myth." Its description reminds one of a tale similar to an especially brutal New England Indian captivity, here displaced west by 3000 miles.
