Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire (California Legacy) [Paperback]

Bayard Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 2000 | Series: California Legacy

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.

Editorial Reviews

Review

''With his keen eye and penchant for details, Taylor bestowed upon these tumultuous and anarchistic times an almost cinematic quality. Writing as he traveled, he managed to combine a sense of the poetic with straightforward historical documentation, underpinned with a wry sense of humor.... Widely regarded as a classic of western literature, Taylor's lively chronicle of the birth of modern California has lost nothing in terms of its initial freshness and vitality in the interim.'' --Rain Taxi Review of Books

''Of all books written about the Gold Rush and the Forty-Niners, Eldorado is one of the most compelling narratives....A California version of the Federalist Papers.'' --The San Francisco Chronicle

About the Author

Bayard Taylor was born in 1825 in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. A restless student, Taylor was apprenticed to a printer at age seventeen. In 1844 his first volume of verse, Ximena, was published. He then arranged with the Saturday Evening Post and the United States Gazetteer to finance a trip abroad in return for publication rights to his travel letters, which were compiled in the extremely popular Views Afoot (1846). In 1847 he began a career in journalism in New York. Eldorado was published in 1850. His Poems of the Orient appeared in 1855. Taylor continued his trips to remote parts of the world--—to the Orient, to Africa, to Russia--and became renowned as the Marco Polo of his day. In 1862 he became secretary of the U.S. legation at St. Petersburg, Russia. Of his works in this later period, the translation of Faust (1870-–71) remains his best known. Taylor died in Berlin, Germany, in 1878.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Heyday; 1st edition (November 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1890771368
• ISBN-13: 978-1890771362
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,733,738 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars superb and engaging, December 3, 2001

By 

writerbytrade - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire (California Legacy) (Paperback)

I stumbled across this book by accident one day and it has turned out to be my find of 2001 -- one of the most enjoyable books I have read in ages. Taylor, a youthful New York journalist and poet, was sent out to California to file back dispatches on this wild, gold-filled, lush place in the seminal gold rush year of 1849, when California was a sprawling region, and not yet a state. And what a fabulous job he does -- this reads more like an engaging adventure narrative than non-fiction, and I could not put it down -- a reader is completely transported into another place and time. One cannot fail to be fascinated by the bustling, energetic, multi-ethnic, can-do place that was the west coast. If you know California, especially the San Francisco, Monterey and Sacramento areas, Taylor's descriptions of their still-untamed landscapes will be both familiar and strange, but always utterly lovely. His reports of the gold rush regions are extraordinary, as is his walk -- yes, *walk* -- from San Francisco to Monterey... this at a time when a galloping horse could get from San Jose to San Francisco in perhaps seven *hours*. Taylor is funny, honest, generally very clear-eyed and unsentimental, and his writing is of very high calibre. Kudos to Heyday Press for bringing this wonderful book to a new audience. I am giving it to everybody as a gift this year.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Probably the most outstanding book on early California ever written....., May 6, 2006

By 

David A. Marks "norcalidave" (Paradise, CA United States) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Eldorado: Adventures in the Path of Empire (California Legacy) (Paperback)

I can't agree more with the other reviewer who has commented on this book. I also found it accidentally (while looking for books written by James D. Houston), and I also am buying extra copies to give as gifts.

The writing here is majestic, magical, and extremely powerful (yet simple and elegant at the same time). You will learn more about the California of the mid-1800s, by reading this book, than you will probably learn anywhere else. The author was a truly gifted writer, and his expressive and detailed language regarding California life at the time of the gold rush, will enthrall and deeply impact you.

One other point! The quality of this printing is exceptional, and adds greatly to the text itself. This book is an awesome deal, given Amazon's pricing and availability.