Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
This book “Yermah the Dorado,” was first publishedat The Sign of the Lark, San Francisco, in1897. The issue was limited to five hundred copies,mostly subscribed for by personal friends of mine.The notes, manuscript and plates were all lost in thefire of 1906.
The date of publication is of the utmost importancebecause the Llama City, Tlamco, the scene ofthis romance, was located in Golden Gate Park,where it was destroyed by earthquake, in the longago.
Since the actual occurrence of 1906, the originalstory has been slightly revised, but not a line of thedescription of the earthquake has been changed, noran incident added. Whoever lived through thosedays, as I did, will not need to be told why. Theuse of aeroplanes and wireless telegraphy, with therecent visit of a huge comet are additional reasonsimpelling me to reprint what is very like a pre-visionof things to be.
To me Golden Gate Park is a hallowed spot. Asa place of refuge I saw an ephemeral city reared in anight of stress and misery. The beauty of a rebuiltmodern metropolis will but serve to recall thevanished glory of the dream city ruled by the manwho was the real El Dorado.