SUPPORT :: Emperor Norton Library Offering No. 2
Four Rare-ish Books for the Emperor Norton Completist
Plus One for the Student of the San Francisco Earthquake & Fires of 1906
We have extra copies of four long-out-of-print books about Emperor Norton (and other eccentrics in San Francisco and the Old West) plus a brand-new paperback copy of Philip Fradkin’s essential 2005 book The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906.
We’re making these available on a first come, first served basis to those who request them below by donating to support the work of The Emperor Norton Trust at the specified gift levels.
All proceeds support the work of the Trust — and…
Shipping is included!
The books and their gift levels are:
1850–1870: Forgotten Characters of Old San Francisco (1938), by Robert Ernest Cowan — gift of $55
The Forgotten Characters of Old San Francisco — Including the Famous Bummer & Lazarus and Emperor Norton (1964), by Robert Ernest Cowan, Anne Bancroft, and Addie L. Ballou — gift of $55
And…
Emperor Norton / Earthquake 3-pack — gift of $45
Bowler Hats and Stetsons (1966), by Colin Rickards
Emperor Norton: Mad Monarch of America (1939), by Allen Stanley Lane
The Great Earthquake and Firestorms of 1906 (2005), by Philip L. Fradkin
Scroll down to learn more about the books — and to request them by donating.
These copies are not being marketed via AbeBooks, Alibris, Biblio, eBay, Amazon or any other website where rare or antiquarian books are sold. They are available only through The Emperor Norton Trust.
Prefer to donate by check? Scroll to the bottom of the page for details and for other fine print.
1850–1870: Forgotten Characters of Old San Francisco (The Ward Ritchie Press, 1938). By Robert Ernest Cowan. 8 photographs and illustrations.
This lovely little hand-printed book documents a talk that Robert Ernest Cowan was giving in California by sometime in 1934. The central “character” is Emperor Norton.
Published in a limited edition of only 500. 70 pp. including endpages.
Cowan’s piece went on to become the title essay for a later 1964 edition by The Ward Ritchie Press — also offered here (see below) — that “bundles” the original piece with two others.
This is the original 1938 edition of Cowan’s essay — now rarely available.
This book was published without a dust jacket, in a cloth binding with deckle-edge pages and a tipped-in title on the spine.
The binding and pages of this ex-library copy are very good — tight, crisp, and unmarked except for a few library markings and perforation-stamps (mainly on the the title page) and a library tape along the length of the spine.
USPS Priority shipping included.
All proceeds support the work of The Emperor Norton Trust.
$55.
This book no longer is available.
The Forgotten Characters of San Francisco: Including the Famous Bummer & Lazarus and Emperor Norton (The Ward Ritchie Press, 1964). Reprints of early-20th-century texts by Robert Ernest Cowan, Anne Bancroft, and Addie L. Ballou. 22 illustrations plus gallery of 9 portrait photographs of Emperor Norton and 2 artworks of him.
This expanded 1964 edition of the essay by Robert Ernest Cowan that The Ward Ritchie Press originally published in 1938 (see previous book, above) makes Cowan’s piece the title essay of a collection that also reprints two related pieces…
Anne Bancroft’s “Bummer and Lazarus” — which Ward Ritchie originally published in 1939 as The Memorable Lives of Bummer & Lazarus (Citizens of San Francisco), conceived as a kind of “companion volume” to the Cowan book.
Addie Ballou’s “Personal Recollections of Norton I,” an article about her experience having the Emperor sit for the portrait she painted of him in 1877 — originally published under the same title in the San Francisco Call of 27 September 1908.
…and adds many more photographs and illustrations — including a nice 11-image Emperor Norton gallery.
This edition is not as “limited” as the 1938 one. But, Ward Ritchie published all of his books on small print runs, so there never are very many copies of this book available at any given time — even fewer that are in such nice condition.
The linen binding and the pages of this copy are fine — tight, crisp, and unmarked — and the original dust jacket is near fine, with only a very few barely perceptible bumps and micro-tears along the top of the front and the top and bottom of the spine.
USPS Priority shipping included.
All proceeds support the work of The Emperor Norton Trust.
$55.
Emperor Norton / Earthquake 3-Pack
We’re bundling together the following three books for one low-low…donation:
BOWLER HATS AND STETSONS: STORIES OF ENGLISHMEN IN THE WILD WEST (Bonanza Books, 1966). By Colin Rickards.
This “sampler” volume by former BBC journalist Colin Rickards (1937–2011) — who lived as an English expat in Toronto from 1970 until his death — opens, in “Book One,” with 6 introductory chapters then moves, in “Book Two,” to profiles of 16 characters of the Old West who got their start in England — including, of course, the Emperor Norton.
Alas, the history of the Emperor presented here is — as some of our more irreverent English friends might say — “pretty shite.”
But, no doubt, there are valuable nuggets to be uncovered elsewhere in the book — and Rickards digs up a couple of pans-ful of rare photographs. For those interested in this slice of Americana, the photos alone make this book worth having.
This copy has lost its dust jacket along the way. But, the binding and pages are near fine — tight, crisp, and unmarked.
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EMPEROR NORTON: THE MAD MONARCH OF AMERICA (The Caxton Printers, 1939). By Allen Stanley Lane.
This is the first of the two book-length biographies of Emperor Norton.
Lane’s account is not perfect, by any means. But, this is an important resource — not least because: Unlike William Drury — whose 1986 biography completely ignores the Emperor’s role as a defender of the Chinese — Lane gives the Emperor’s proclamations and other activities on behalf of the Chinese a prominent documentary airing.
This ex-library copy of Lane’s book is “well-loved”: The dust jacket is missing The binding is not original. There are library markings, several pencil markings from a previous reader(s), and coffee or tea splatters in various places. Not a collector’s copy.
But, this copy remains a perfectly serviceable “delivery system” for reading Lane’s book — which has been digitized but remains accessible only in physical form.
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THE GREAT EARTHQUAKE AND FIRESTORMS OF 1906: HOW SAN FRANCISCO NEARLY DESTROYED ITSELF (University of California Press, 2005). By Philip L. Fradkin.
Brand-new paperback copy of this essential account.
USPS Priority shipping for the 3-pack included.
All proceeds support the work of The Emperor Norton Trust.
$45.
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The Emperor Norton Trust is organized as a “sole proprietorship in the public interest.” Nonprofit in spirit and in practice, the Trust is led by John Lumea and supported by a select group of Advisors. The Emperor Norton Trust is the evolutionary “next phase” of the larger enterprise that began with — and was expressed as — The Emperor’s Bridge Campaign from August 2013 to December 2019. Financial contributions are not tax-deductible.
1 Please send checks to: The Emperor Norton Trust, 250 Poplar Street, #3, Boston, MA 02131.
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