Chicago and Its Environs. A Handbook for the Traveler
Chicago, Illinois: L. Schick, 1891. First Edition. Flexible Cloth. Very Good. Item #26883
Folding frontispiece plan of the inner city + 510 pages + (1) city plan showing the burned district of the Chicago Fire + (1) blank + 48 pages concerning the Suburban Stations, ports, cable rates, growth statistics, street railways & other city data + (4) page Index + lx pages of city advertisements, often illustrated and printed on yellow-tinted paper + (7) pages of Addresses for Purchasers, Physicians, Foreign Consuls. Final free endpaper with chart of Railroad Ticket Offices, Passenger and Freight Depots; attached at back endpaper is a "Rand, McNally & Co.'s Map of Chicago. No. 3 1891" - 22 1/2" x 30 1/2" approx. size, printed in colors; the reverse is a slightly smaller Rand McNally New City Limits Map of Chicago 1891 (with printed copyright date of 1889). Illustrated throughout in black and white, with some of these double-folds; there are additional illustrations of city architecture & environs printed on heavier paper stock, made from photographs. A thorough guide, with sections on how to reach Chicago, living & touring the area; city, federal, educational institutions, businesses, the press, churches & religious institutions, cemeteries, commercial exchanges, cultural activities and groups and much on transportation including routes & schedules in and around the city. Schick's prefatory comments allude to arranging a future edition with expanded coverage; however, the Newberry Library, in their Foreign Language Press Survey notes his Illinois Staats-Zeitung of November 25, 1892 obituary: "…the well-known German publisher died last Wednesday morning at 177 Illinois St. from heart disease. Louis Schick was born in 1842 in Hamburg v. d. Hohe, Germany. His father was likewise a publisher, and he came from an old established publishing house. Schick came to America at the age of 17, and to Chicago in the early sixties. Here he entered a business house as a clerk and worked himself up to the position of bookkeeper. Later he established, with a Mr. Meininger, a German bookshop on Madison St. The Chicago fire destroyed his business. After the fire he started another German bookstore on the corner of Clark and Lake Sts. This business he retained until he retired in 1889, in order to devote his time entirely to publications. His collection of novels, known as the Schick Collection, and his Humoristic Library are well known everywhere. He also published a splendid translation of Nordau's Works: Conventional Lies and Paradoxes. He is also the author and publisher of, Chicago and Its Environs. Schick lived a rather secluded life during his last years. Nature was his best friend. He was never married. A sister, living in Chicago, survives him." The title page with the small partial previous owner name-stamp of collector George R. Brush M.D. U.S. Navy; a surgeon & medical inspector, from 1861-1894. Approx. 5" x 7" size; bound in flexible red cloth, gilt cover and spine titles (dulled). Some edge-wear and mottling of color to the cloth; front bottom corner bumped, the "push' of the paper in the corner carrying through the volume. Contents clean and in very good condition.
Price: $450.00