McCune Rare Book and Art Collection

An eloquent tribute by Lillie Anne Brown, PhD; she has written and lectured extensively on the works of celebrated American author Ernest J. Gaines.

Remembering Ernest Gaines~

The McCune is closed due to the coronavirus pandemic until further notice.

Featured Today at the McCune: Memoirs of Edward Bosqui, (the first to introduce the art of fine printing to California and whose book of memoirs is a faithful and important contribution to pioneer life in San Francisco.) Foreward by Harold C. Holmes & Introduction by Henry R. Wagner. The Holmes Book Company. Oakland, California. 1952. Another of our companions was a big, burly Irishman, weighing 200 pounds, whose mule did not look much larger than himself, but it was both ac...tive and vicious. To subjugate the beast, Murphy thought the proper thing to do was to sharpen the rowels of his great, dangling Mexican spurs. There were nine of us altogether, ranging in age from seventeen to fifty years. After a week’s preparation, one fine morning we gallantly rode out of camp in our motley dress, mounted on horses and mules, and looking for all the world as if we might be setting forth on one of Don Quixote de la Mancha’s expeditions. At the head of our company rode Perry, followed in single file along the trail by the brave Wemys, his trusted lieutenant; then came Murphy and two gamblers, who were the most respectable looking men in the party. The trail led through a dry river bottom for some distance, on both sides of which grew a variety of cactus and tall bushes. After quietly traveling some miles and congratulating ourselves on our progress, something frightened one of our animals, and in an instant, without any warning, a general stampede commenced. A mule would start out like a flash in one direction and another in an opposite one, and before I could realize what had occurred I was left alone. With some difficulty I succeeded in keeping my mule under control, and on looking around I saw in the distance big Murphy on his little beast heading toward a great cactus thirty feet high. He was holding on to the pummel of his saddle, his back curved like a jockey’s in a race, with the sharp points of his spurs buried in the flanks of his charger, which, approaching the cactus, came to a sudden stop. In a trice up went Murphy as if shot from a catapult, and in an instant the poor fellow was lodged ten feet above the ground in a bed of thorns. His cries and prayers for relief to the blessed Virgin and to all the Saints were loud and earnest. The scattered members of the party, guided by his cries, came to his assistance, and in about twenty minutes, with great difficulty, we got him out of his painful position. For many days after, at every camping place, by day and by night, Murphy devoted his time to pulling the long cactus needles out of his body. See more

Featured Today at the McCune: The Hudson’s Bay Company’s First Fur Brigade to the Sacramento Valley: Alexander McLeod’s 1829 Hunt. Introduced and Edited by Doyce B. Nunis, Jr. Published by The Sacramento Book Collector’s Club. MCMLXVIII (1968) . . . your want of Ammunition as one of the causes of coming out of the Valley at the time you did ought not to have occurred as you were allowed leaving this [place] to take the quantity you pleased and besides when you saw it running... Short you ought to have endeavored to have purchased some from the Russians or Spaniards or people with whom you fell in with rather than allow that prevent your fulfilling your Instructions you say ‘To have wintered in the Valley would have subjected the Expedition to an open intercourse with the people of the Settlement and Settlers lately come out which I have reason to believe would have been productive of evil results’ this could have been obviated by moving a sufficient distance up the Valley. McLoughlin to McLeod See more

Featured Today at the McCune: Salome, A Tragedy in One Act, by Oscar Wilde. Drawings by Aubrey Beardsley. John W. Luce & Company. Boston. 1907 THE YOUNG SYRIAN: She is like a dove that has strayed. . . . She is like a narcissus trembling in the wind. . . . She is like a silver flower.

Featured Today at the McCune: The Constant Mistress by Enid Clay with Engravings by Eric Gill. The Golden Cockerel Press. 1934. [signed by Clay and Gill] The Constant Mistress The day a wanton is, she flaunts... Her beauty to the eager air; And to a thousand glancing eyes Unfolds her treasure rare. But night a constant mistress is: Tender and true and secret she, She gives her moon for my desire, She lights her stars to comfort me. The fretful glory of the day, That strove for mastery, shall cease: Night folds me to her beating heart; And where she lays her hand is peace.

~Celebrating Vallejo's new Poet Laureate Jeremy Snyder~ **SUNDAY JANUARY 12, 2020 in the JOSEPH ROOM, JFK LIBRARY**

Artwalk this Friday @ The McCune: Japanese watercolors!