The San Francisco Wasp: An Illustrated History tells the story of one of the most colorful and unusual magazines ever published in America. Though The Wasp was a fixture on San Francisco newsstands for sixty-five years, it is best remembered for its glory days during the 19th century when, as a chromolithographic weekly devoted to politics and satire, it was the most widely read magazine on the West Coast. Now, for the first time, The Wasp's story has been told, accompanied by 100 cartoons from the magazine, nearly all of them as they first appeared -- in full color.