SEÑOR PLUMMER: The Life and Laughter of an Old-Californian
Hollywood, California: Murray & Gee, Inc., 1943. Second Edition. Hardcover. Inscribed by the author on the front endpaper, with a holographic note by him laid in. Octavo. Original red cloth binding, with gilt titles. The dust jacket is moderately toned along the spine and folds, with nibbling by silverfish, general edgewear, and some tape reinforcement to the verso.
An essential contribution to the literature of Los Angeles, blending history, memoir, comic anecdote, shameless boast, and sad reflection. The book was assembled from the memoires of Eugene Rafael Plummer (1852-1943), an original resident in the 1870s of what would become Hollywood. His recollections depict Los Angeles as a small, dusty, violent, and reckless dumping ground for adventurers who couldn’t make it in San Francisco – a place where nearly all its residents are dispossessed: the Native Americans by the Spaniards and Mexicans, the Mexicans by the Anglos, the half-Latino Anglos of the 1840s by the Yankees of the 1860s, and all the aforementioned by successive waves of Anglos. Includes a highly mythologized account of the founding of Los Angeles, as well as Plummer’s memoires of the outlaws Joaquin Murrieta and Tiburcio Vasquez. Very good / Good. Item #73191
Price: $100.00