Mark Twain In California

Description for MARK TWAIN IN CALIFORNIA:  THE TURBULENT CALIFORNIA YEARS OF SAMUEL CLEMENS by Nigey Lennon: THE WESTWARD ADVANCE OF THE AMERICAN FRONTIER toward the pacific captured the imagination of the literate world like few other territorial expansions in the course of history.  The avid readers of New York, Boston, and London dreamed of passage west, and an eager cadre of journalistic correspondents fed their dreams with tales of pioneer heroism, the legendary feats of outlaws and noble or savage Indians, and, of course, yarns of great fortunes won of lost in the fabled gold field and great silver mines. The streets and saloons of Virginia City, Sacramento, and San Francisco were crowded with would-be men of letters who chronicled the great adventure in dispatches to their prestigious dailies, fortnightly journals, and monthly magazines.  Like the instant fortunes made in the gold field, literary reputations were occasionally created almost over night by the simple retelling of