+ Survey 45:369 D 4 ’20 280w
CANFIELD, CHAUNCEY L., ed. Diary of a forty-niner. *$3.50 Houghton 979.4
The book is based on the authentic diary of one Alfred T. Jackson, a pioneer miner who cabined and worked on Rock Creek, Nevada County, California, from 1850 to 1852. It is a “truthful, unadorned, veracious chronicle of the placer mining days of the foothills, a narrative of events as they occurred; told in simple and, at times, ungrammatical sentences, yet vivid and truth compelling in the absence of conscious literary endeavor.... It sets forth graphically the successive steps in gold mining, from the pan and rocker to the ground sluice and flume.... No less fascinating is the romance interwoven in the pages of the diary.” (Preface) The editor states that he has verified many of the incidents and happenings. An edition of the book was published in San Francisco shortly before the earthquake and fire, during which the plates and many of the copies were destroyed.
“This book is well printed in large type but the solid character of the contents, in spite of the chapter headings, will repel some readers.” H. S. K.
+ − Boston Transcript p3 D 11 ’20 600w
“One of the most fascinating features of this remarkable document is the diarist’s self-revelation of his evolution from a Puritanical New Englander, bound and shackled with the prejudices of generations, into a broad-minded man whose mental growth is miraculously stimulated by the freedom of his environment and associations.”
+ N Y Times p22 Ja 16 ’21 2850w + R of Rs 63:223 F ’21 100w
CANNAN, GILBERT. Release of the soul. *$1.75 Boni & Liveright 149.3
20–8452