The Danites In The Sierras

Jansen, McClurg and Company, Chicago, 1881; First American Edition; 8vo, 258 pages, plus 4-page publisher’s catalogue at the back; green cloth; beveled boards; gilt spine titles. Legendary literary frontiersman Joaquin Miller’s raw yet moving tale of life in an early California Sierra gold town, where terror from the Mormon secret society of Danites, bent on the extermination of the families of those they believed responsible for the killing of Joseph Smith, looms over all. First issued during his sojourn in London in 1875 under the title "The First Fam’lies Of The Sierras," Miller later made the book into a play which opened in New York in 1877 and met with considerable commercial success. Born Cincinnatus Heine Miller, he wrote only two books under his given name before adopting the pseudonym Joaquin Miller, ultimately authoring nearly thirty literary works, and during his lifetime had been an adventurer, explorer, miner, pony express rider, county judge, and journalist. He was respected for his poetry as well as his prose, and counted among his close friends Bret Harte and Ambrose Bierce. Miller eventually settled in Oakland, California, where today his home is preserved as part of the city’s Joaquin Miller Park. Very Good, binding tight, sound, square, corners sharp. Moderate cloth wear at the spine panel extremities, occasional light foxing, previous owner neat signature on f.f.e.p., dated 1882.