The Bonanza Mines and the Bonanza Kings of California. Their 5 Years Reign: 1875-1879.

[San Francisco]: (n. d.), circa 1880. First edition thus. 9 x 5-3/4 inches. [vi],3-87,[1]pp. Black leather with stamped gilt lettering and ornaments to front cover. Spine leather chipped and peeling, with some loss; corners worn; bookplate and small ink notation to front paste-down, with offsetting from bookplate to front free endpaper; different ownership signature to title page; light foxing to beginning few leaves; light musty odor. Good.

First edition thus, following the pamphlet published circa 1879. This is the copy of William F. Babcock, with his ownership signature to title page. Babcock (1820-1885) was a prominent San Franciscan: an agent of the Pacific Mail Steamship Co. in the 1850s who later became an executive at Parrott & Co., president of the Spring Valley Water Company, and trustee of the Ophir mining company; Babcock doesn't appear to have had any direct involvement with the Consolidated Virginia Company or the Bonanza mines.

A one-sided account of the dealings of the four "Bonanza Kings" -- John William Mackay, James Graham Fair, James Clair Flood, and William S. O'Brien -- who started the stock brokerage firm Flood and O'Brien. In 1871, the firm gained control of the Consolidated Virginia Mining Co., which had claims along the Comstock Lode outside Virginia City, Nevada, and in California. They discovered a "big bonanza" vertical ore body some 1,200 feet deep in 1873, which would go on to produce $3 million per month for the next three years, and sometimes more in later years; production didn't start to fall off until 1879. By the end of it, the Bonanza Kings were some of the richest men in the U.S., although, as Dewey scathingly notes here, their manner of selling off the dividends left some (or at least Dewey, who was himself an investor) crying foul.

Uncommon in the trade, particularly with a contemporary association.