A Tour of St. Louis; or, the Inside Life of a Great City by Dacus, J. A. & James W. Buel - 1878

New.

Western Publishing Co., 1878. Hardcover. Good. Large 8vo in blind-stamped green cloth, spine title and devices in gilt. Binding just a bit shaken, front hinge starting, corners rubbed through, frayed cloth at the spine ends, p.o. bookplate on the front pastedown. Also on the pastedown, and on the ffep, is the rubberstamp of 'Wm. J. Lemp, Jr. / Private Library / No. ______'. If you're not from St. Louis and/or don't know about beer baron Lemp and his family's sordid history, check out his Wikipedia page.

St. Louis: Western Pub Co, 1878. First Edition. Octavo. 554, xix pages The largest book stores in the West before the Gold Rush were in St. Louis and Chicago (though this would change as California became more settled in the next decade). The decline in the prices of books by the late 1870's is noted and the cost of acquiring sets of Dickens insnoted in terms of binding, etc at far below the prices even those with over 250 illustrations. After providing an early history of St. Louis, the author writes of the hundreds of businesses, churches, civic buildings most of which were gone by the early 1960's. The chapter on Ways That Are Dark discusses the schemes of thieves and swindlers that preyed on the citizens and visitors detailing exactly how the "pocket book dropping" scam, "snide jewelry sales", mock auctions to cheat the prospective bidder operated, all with illustrations. The "street Arabs" are the homeless children who wander the streets of the city destined for what at best would be menial… Read More

St. Louis, Missouri: Western Publishing Company, Jones & Griffin, 1878. Tooled brown cloth hardcover, 564 pages, engraved illustrations throughout, light soiling on endpapers, hinges loose, . First Edition. Hard Cover. Good/No Dust Jacket.