Put's Original California Songster Price 25 Cents Put's original California songster : giving in a few words what would occupy volumes, detailing the hopes, trials and joys of a miner's life. 4th ed., 18th thousand Publisher : San Francisco : D.E. Appleton, 1868. 64 pages. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1854, By JOHN A. STONE, In the Clerk‘s Office of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of California. In presenting the present edition of ‘PUT’S ORIGINAL CALIFORNIA SONGSTER,’ the Publishers have aimed to please, and spared no expense to render it more worthy of your support. Trusting it in the hands of its Dedicators ‘ California’s best and truest men’ We remain, Yours, respectfully, THE PUBLISHERS. PREFACE. In dedicating this little Book of Songs to the Miners of California, those hardy builders of California‘s prosperity and greatness, the author deems it his duty to offer a prefatory remark in regard to the origin of the work and the motive of its publication. Having been a miner himself for a number of years, he has had ample opportunities of observing, as he has equally shared, the many trials and hardships to which his brethren of the pick and shovel have been exposed, and to which in general they have so patiently, so cheerfully, and even heroically submitted. Hence, ever since the time of his crossing the Plains, in the memorable year of ’50, he has been in the habit of noting down a few of the leading items of his experience, and clothing them in the garb of humorous, though not irreverent verse. Many of his songs may show some hard edges, and he is free to confess, that they may fail to please the more aristocratic portion of the community, who have but little sympathy with the details, hopes, trials or joys of the toiling miner’s life; but he is confident that the class he addresses will not find them exaggerated, nothing extenuated, nor aught set down ‘in malice.$rsquo; In conclusion, he would state, that after having sung them himself at various times and places, and latterly with the assistance of a few gentlemen, known by the name of Sierra Nevada Rangers, the songs have been published at the request of a number of friends; and if the author should thereby succeed in contributing to the amusement of those he is anxious to please, enlivening the long tedious hours of a miner's winter fireside, his pains will not be unrewarded. San Francisco, Sept., 1855

Note: apparently, the University of California Bancroft Library does not have a first edition