Geoffrey Gray’s hunt for The Life and Adventures of Joaquín Murieta: The Celebrated California Bandit—a short violent novel from 1854 that’s so rare, only two first editions exist—takes him through the used bookshops of Mexico City’s Calle Donceles, the archives of various bibliotecas, and eventually to a phone call with a California librarian that leads to a dead end—until he learns of another lead in Germany. Along the way, Gray weaves in the mythology of the book and its Cherokee author, John Rollin Ridge, and offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of rare-book collecting.
“Any chance you have this book?” I ask.
She studies the photo on my screen for a moment, then hands my phone to a colleague behind her who is halfway through a taco. He looks, wipes his chin with a napkin, and shakes his head.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” she says.
I shuffle down the street. Bibliofilia. El Laberinto. El Tomo Suelto. I make the same inquiry, show the same photo, and receive the same blank stares. No one has heard of it. Am I even in the right place?
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