[2], 490 + [2] ad pp. 7¼x4¾, original green cloth dec. in gilt & lettered in black on the front cover, spine lettered in gilt. First Edition.

With four lines of manuscript verse by Jackson, initialed H.H. and signed Helen Hunt Jackson by her, affixed to the front pastedown. "The birds must know. Who windy songs/ will sing as they/ The common air has generous wings/ Songs make their way." Perhaps a free translation from an American Indian chant. In the Zamorano Eighty it is noted that the book is "...of course, not a great novel. But it is an exceedingly important California book for two reasons. A popular book, it spread the fame of California and no doubt inspired a considerable number of people to migrate here... And, second, by exposing the abuses to which Southern California Indians were subjected, it resulted in numerous wholesale reforms in the Administration of Indian affairs..." BAL 10456; Cowan p.307; Zamorano Eighty 46.