“SNOW-CAPPED PEAKS AND GEMLIKE MOUNTAIN LAKES”: EARLY PHOTO-ONLY EDITION OF SIERRA NEVADA, WITH 50 EXQUISITE PHOTOGRAPHIC PLATES

ADAMS, Ansel. Sierra Nevada: The John Muir Trail. Reproductions of 50 Photographs. Chicago: R.R. Donnelley & Sons/Lakeside Press, circa 1938-50. Folio (10-1/2 by 13 inches), wire-bound as issued, original stiff gilt-stamped red wrappers.

Early text-free edition of this photographic classic, featuring 50 luminous photographic prints (13 mounted) including “Half Dome,” in original stiff paper wrappers.

To Ansel Adams, the open vistas of the American West were "an event, an ephemeral, continuing drama. The protagonist of the drama is the light." Adams photographed these "snow-capped peaks and gemlike mountain lakes… so persuasively that it has seemed to most younger photographers of ambition that that book has been closed" (Szarkowski, 13-14). In the luminous images of Sierra Nevada, this superlative landscape photographer affirms his renown for elevating "the act of photography to a religious experience. He realized in his pictures what Walt Whitman celebrated in his poetry: the uniqueness of American landscape and nature" (Icons of Photography, 96). Commissioned by a president of the Sierra Club to assemble a book of photographs in tribute to his son, who died in a climbing accident, Adams created an outstanding volume, whose striking halftones set a new high standard for photobooks. Included is "Half Dome," widely considered his first masterpiece and "one of Adams' most famous mountain subjects" (New York Times). In these images Adams created a timeless vision "of the Sierra Nevada—the revelation of the beauty of wide horizons and the tender perfection of detail" (Foreword). The first edition of this work was a 1938 signed limited edition of 500 copies, signed by Ansel Adams and featuring text captions. Lakeside Press produced the engravings and prints for that edition. This edition—not recorded bibliographically—appears to have been produced by R.R. Donnelley/Lakeside Press, without Archetype, likely accounting for the lack of text. Lakeside Press, a subsidiary of Donnelley, was known for a number of prominent series including their Caxton Club and Limited Editions Press publications, as well as the Lakeside Classics series of high-quality gift reprints. While not recorded as part of any of those series, this volume falls in line with Lakeside's aspirational approach to book publishing, reflected in the quality of the photographic reproduction. See Open Book, 88; Roth, 58.

Images bright and fine, only light wear to extremities of wrappers. A very nearly fine copy.