CALIFORNIA - Edwin F. BEAN. Bean's History and Directory of Nevada County, California. Containing a Complete History of the County, with Sketches of the Various Towns and Mining Camps, the Names and Occupation of Residents; also, full statistics of mining and all other industrial resources. Nevada [i.e. Nevada City, California]: Daily Gazette Book and Job Office, 1867. 8vo. vi, [6], 424pp. Tipped-in ad slip between pages 184 and 185. Contemporary purple morocco. E.G. Waite, of Gregory & Waite, Grocers, Nevada City (bookplate, name in gilt on upper cover).

The first Nevada County directory, the first history of the county as a whole, and the first book printed in Nevada County.

First edition of this notable compendium of early source material, similar in import to the county histories of Thompson and West (Wheat). The work also includes sketches of the towns and mining camps, a directory of the residents, including their occupations, as well as statistics of mining and other resources and a plethora of fascinating advertisements. Bean's history and directory is quite scarce and contains a great wealth of early material on this vitally important mining region. A substantial essay is given over to mining gold from quartz deposits, which, as the author notes, has been the subject of numerous false starts.

[Bean's] history and directory is, by far, the best-known of all California directories. One of the great 'standard' county histories, it is, in the minds of many collectors, dealers, historians and libraries, one of the most valuable - content wise - of all directories published in the United States (Quebedeaux). .

Cowan II p 170; Graff 219; Howes B-278; Wheat Books 13; Quebedeaux 36; Streeter Sale 2913.