1956 1st year edition; "The Opening of the Far West 1840-1900"; Doubleday & Company publishers, New York; hardbound in forest green boards with vivid gilt stamp lettering and decor on cover and spine; very good condition with unmarked pages; no dust jacket.
 
Description -
This book is a colorful gallery of characters:  Heroes and rascals, adventurers and plodders, men who invaded and tamed or were tamed by what the geographers call the true Far West ... In the cast are Spaniards, Russians, Yankees, Southerners; Sutter, who dream of an idyllic retreat in the foothills of paradise was shattered by the Godl Rush...
 
Irving Stone (born Tennenbaum, July 14, 1903, San Francisco, California – August 26, 1989, Los Angeles) was an American writer, chiefly known for his biographical novels of noted artists, politicians and intellectuals; among the best known are Lust for Life (1934), about the life of Vincent van Gogh, and The Agony and the Ecstasy (1961), about Michelangelo.