Bayard Taylor was among the thousands of young men who spilled into California in the tumultuous year 1849. Dispatched by Horace Greeley of the New York Tribune, Taylor was to report on the madness, exuberance, and upheaval of the California gold rush. Traveling throughout the state, Taylor witnessed the explosive growth of San Francisco and the instantaneous creation of Sierra townships. He traversed the nearly deserted lands of the Spanish missions and attended the constitutional convention that set the boundaries and forged the laws for the new state.
Now newly introduced by James D. Houston, with annotations by Robert Senkewicz, this cornerstone of California literature is once again available to a wide audience. Roger Kahn (Boys of Summer), himself once a journalist with the New York Herald Tribune, provides an afterword.
