Sun Mountain

By Richard S. Wheeler

Book Overview

There had never been a place like the Comstock or a city like Virginia or a gathering of brilliant men such as those who assembled there. So writes Henry Stoddard in Richard Wheeler's unforgettable novel-as-memoir of Virginia City, the most spectacular boomtown ever seen in the West. Drawn to fabled Virginia City and its Comstock Lode in the early 1860s, journalist Henry Stoddard brushed shoulders with mining titans, speculators, and bankers -the people who built fortunes from the amazing mines--as well as the men who went down into the bowels of the earth to wrest the riches from it, working in the hellish heat for $4 a weekAlso among Stoddard's acquaintances was a young Missourian named Sam Clemens, who prospered in Virginia City as a reporter for the Enterprise and would later transform himself into Mark Twain Henry Stoddard is fictional; the story, however, is true, perhaps the most astonishing true story of the American West.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812580117
• ISBN13: 9780812580112
• Release Date: August 2002
• Publisher: Forge
• Length: 378 Pages
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 4.1" x 6.7"

Customer Reviews

A MOTHERLODE of a book by one of todays best!!

The book begins with Henry Stoddard writting his thoughts and experiences while living in the silver mining town of Virginia City, Nevada, On January 1, 1900. What follows is a grand tale of life and love in a booming mining town!! Any fan of Historical Fiction will love this book!! I read it while I was vacationing in Virgina City, Nevada and it made me feel as if I was there in all the excitement of the COMSTOCK LODE!!!

Wheeler Hits the Motherlode in Virginia City

I discovered Richard Wheeler a month ago. What a great discovery! He's an intelligent novelist who develops rich characters and weaves his narrative into the history of the old west. He educates and entertains.Sun Mountain is an excellent read and strongly recommended. Learn about Virginia City, Nevada during its heyday. And what a heyday it had! Its roots are solidly in the pre-railroad days when everything had to be hauled hundreds and hundreds of arduous miles over the Sierras from California during the early days of that state. Then came the railroads and transformed Virginia City, as they transformed every town they touched. Wheeler instructs the reader on the Comstock Lode and the technological innovations developed there that changed mining around the world. He deftly covers the full gamut of human nature and existence in such a place at such a time.If you have yet to read a Richard Wheeler novel, Sun Mountain is an excellent place to start.

A new view of the Comstock Lode

The book says the author was Richard S.Wheeler. The real Author was a man by the name of Dickey Dey. For many years he was the private secretary of Mr. John Mackay. This really an interesting report on the working of Virginia City and more about the people and characters that lived there than it is about mining.A must read for all fans of the Comstock Lode.

Sun Mountain is a pleasure to read.

At last: a historical novel with a sense of humor. Undeniably acknowledged as a master storyteller and flawless in his knowledge of the historical West, Wheeler fully unveils yet another talent from his already amazing repretoire: humor. While the real stars of Sun Mountain are the Virginia City's silver mines, narrator Henry Stoddard nearly steals the show with his sly perceptions of the city's inhabitants and his inept campaign to leave bachelorhood in a near womanless town. His search to find true love and the city's innovations to unearth its riches made me smile-one with affection, the other with admiration.

A splendid, touching historical novel...

I can think of few historical novels-as-memoirs of the American West that are as memorable as Richard S. Wheeler's SUN MOUNTAIN--Brian Garfield's WILD TIMES comes to mind but few others. Wheeler's narrator, Henry Stoddard, a newspaperman with the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, was present at the beginnning of the Comstock silver boom in Nevada in the 1860s and was there at the end of it two decades later. He witnessed every significant event and knew every personage, from young Samuel Langhorne Clemens to the forgotten miner--Welsh, Irish, Chinese--who spent his days in the hellish mines wresting the silver ore free to make other men rich. SUN MOUNTAIN is an unforgettable, powerful, touching novel set in a tumultuous time and a story that could only be told by this towering figure in Western fiction.