Aurifodina; or, Adventures in the Gold Region. By Cantell A. Bigly

New York: Baker & Scribner, 1849. 8vo. 190 x 120 mm., [7 ½ x 4 ¾ inches]. 103 pp., plus 4pp. ads. Original pictorial boards highlighted in black, red and blue watercolor; boards soiled, joints cracked, spine chipped, yet intact; cheap paper stock toned brown. With faults an unusual binding. First edition of this fantasy novel, called by Wright, an "adventure in California among a strange people whose commonest possession was gold. Obviously modeled on Gulliver's Travels, it also suggests Poe's influence and in some ways is like Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur"s Court." In his series of catalogues dedicated to California, Warren Howell writes, "This scarce work is the first American novel which relates to the Gold Rush. . ." This binding, hand painted on the original drab boards, may represent a special copy created for or by the author, "Can tell a big ly, a.k.a. George W. Peck".   Wright, Fiction, I, p. 2030. Howell, CaliforniaCalifornia Gold Rush: A Descriptive Bibliography. Cowan Bibliography of California and the Pacific West, I, p. 175. Cowan II, p. 477. (Inventory #: 460)