Journey to the Gold Diggins by Jeremiah Saddlebags by CALIFORNIA GOLD RUSH - James A. & Donald F. READ, illustrators - 1849

New York: Stringer & Townsend, 1849. Oblong 8vo. (5 1/2 x 9 inches). 63, [1]pp. Pictorial title and 112 wood engraved comic illustrations. Original green lower wrapper (upper wrapper, which repeats the title is lacking). Housed in a modern cloth slipcase. Rare first edition of among the earliest caricatures of the Forty-Niners: a classic of California Gold Rush comic book literature. "Of the American comic books on the subject of the gold rush, the best known, although it is scarce, is this." This is the story of an "Argonaut who risked the hard journey to the gold fields, found that it was all a good deal more difficult than he had thought, avoided death by a hair's breadth time and again, and came home poorer than he went. It is the best of the American comic books on this theme" (Cowan). "Jeremiah Saddlebags underwent every possible mishap in this classic spoof of the adventurers of the Forty-Niner" (Streeter). Two issues of the first edition were published, without priority, in Cincinnati and New York (present). A scarce example of the best known work of Gold Rush comic book literature. Cowan, p. 523; Howes R92; Kurutz 524b; Murrell 170; Randall 404; Sabin 68157; Streeter sale 2591; Graff 3432.