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The Shirley Letters: From the California Mines, 1851-1852

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith Clappe
Introduction by Marlene Smith-Baranzini

224 pages (6 x 9)
Trade paper, ISBN: 1-890771-00-7, $13.95

A California Legacy book

The Shirley Letters, written from the mining camps in 1851 and 1852, are something valuable and rare—a portrait by a woman of an era dominated by men. They offer a vivid picture of gold rush life, from accounts of "murders, fearful accidents, bloody deaths, a mob, whippings, a hanging, an attempt at suicide, and a fatal duel" to bars lined with "that eternal crimson calico which flushes the whole social life of the Golden State," and the rare and welcome luxury of oyster feasts. The sights, smells, and even the sounds of the mining camps come alive—the echoes of swearing men, the flume with its "dismal moaning and shrieking all the live-long night," the barking of mongrel dogs. With the "wild grandeur and awful magnificence" of the Sierra as background, this classic account presents a picture of the gold rush that is at times humorous, at times empathetic, and always trustworthy.

Reviews:

"Of all the writers drawn to California between 1845 and the mid-1860s, [Clappe] speaks with the most original voice. Her only real competition, in my view, is Mark Twain."—James D. Houston, author, Californians: Searching for the Golden State

"The Shirley Letters is superb reading!"—The Midwest Book Review

Author Biographies:

Louise Amelia Knapp Smith was born in New Jersey in 1819. In 1848, she married Fayette Clapp and moved to San Francisco, and subsequently to the mining town of Rich Bar in the Sierra foothills. The Herald first published Louise's letters and poems in 1851 under the pseudonym of Dame Shirley. In 1856, Louise and Fayette divorced, and she went on to become a well-respected schoolteacher and a leading figure in California's early literary scene. In 1878, Louise moved back to the East Coast, and approximately twenty years later, she retired to Morristown, New Jersey, where she died in 1906.

Marlene Smith-Barazini is the associate editor of California History, the quarterly journal of the California Historical Society. In 1989, she received her M.A. in writing from the University of San Francisco. She is currently working on a biography of Louise Clappe.