Edited with an Introduction by Alan Rosenus
Drawings by Joaquin Miller
This collection of Miller's short fiction evolved from his multiple occupations on the frontier: as an impoverished miner, finding beauty and danger everywhere but pay-dirt seldom; as an Idaho express rider who remained on good terms with swaggering outlaws who often threatened his trade but sometimes guaranteed his safety. Paradoxically, Miller was also the first judge of Grant County, Oregon. The collection includes his California Diary (1855-1857) which records the simplicity of his daily life with Sutatot, his Indian wife, all set down in his own pure, uncensored idiom.
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Walt Whitman wrote:"Very unlike other writers of his day, Joaquin Miller was not 'haunted by the pathos of capitulation' ... for it is with the figure of Miller that the Western archetype finds its first true inception ... he identified with the West and appropriated the archetype into his being, adhering to it as the determining way of his life."
"I guess I belong to Miller: he has proved himself in so many ways—his books have proved him, his affections have proved him. Take Miller along with you."