Compiled by J Wells Kelly and published in San Francisco in 1862, this rare copy of the First Directory of Nevada Territory…right, which was worn, dry and splitting but in original, leather-backed printed boards, sold for $6500 (£5080) in a PBA Galleries sale of April 20.
The first major descriptive and historical account of the territory, it was issued less than three years after the discovery of the famous Comstock Lode and lists in its pages more than 4000 miners, labourers and so on. Also of note, on page 69, is the name of an ‘Assistant Secretary Nevada Territory’, one Samuel Clemens, or Mark Twain, who was in fact assistant to his brother, newspaper publisher Orion Clemens.