The Forty-Niners

New York: Time-Life Books, [1974]. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Very good. 28 cm. Leatherette covering. 240 pages. Illustrations (some in color). Minor impressions on rear cover. Some ink check marks in index. This is one of The Old West series. William Weber Johnson, former Time-LIfe journalist was also a teacher and historian who specialized in writing about Mexico, the rugged Old West and the characters who prowled those colorful lands. He was sent to London as a war correspondent and traveled with British troops in the Allied invasion of France. He moved in 1961 to teach at UCLA and later served as Journalism Department chairman before retiring in 1971. Johnson was the author of 11 books, among them a 1960 biography he called "Kelly Blue." It was about the little-known Harold Osman Kelly, a primitive artist who earned his way in the American West as a mule skinner, teamster, ranch hand and farmer sketching the people and things around him in the early days of the century. As with other volumes in the Time-Life Old West series, this is a lavish book containing numerous illustrations taken from contemporary photographs, sketches, and paintings. The handsome graphics, many in color, are held together by a smooth and authoritative narrative by veteran journalist and professor emeritus of journalism at UCLA, William Weber Johnson. Johnson tells the general reader everything that he might want to know about the life and times of the forty-niners.