Tales of Old California

By: Frank Oppel

Book Overview

Illustrated with hundreds of original plates, this volume is a collection of 33 different articles, essays, and stories ranging from the years 1875 to 1912. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1555215386
• ISBN13: 9781555215385
• Release Date: January 2005
• Publisher: Castle
• Length: 476 Pages
• Weight: 2.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.8" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Recommended highly for lovers of California history

For those interested in California history beginning with the days of Spanish & Mexican settlement and continuing through the 1890's, this is an excellent book for the price. It covers a myriad of subjects, such as the mission days, the landscape of early California, mining operations, logging, early San Francisco, Southern California, etc...The book is a collection of 33 different articles, essays, and stories, which were compiled and edited by Frank Oppel, although he did not write any of them. Most of the stories were originally written and/or published from 1870-1900. The majority were published in periodicals of the 1880's & 90's--for example, Harpers New Monthly Magazine, Outing Magazine, and Everybody's Magazine. The other stories are either memoirs, letters, essays, or first-hand accounts of early California written by settlers & pioneers. There is an interesting summary and description of the missions of Alta, California, written by General Vallejo in 1891. Other subjects include the story of the Utica mine; pioneer Spanish families; San Francisco in the early days; logging in the Redwood forests of Mendocino County; the orange growers of Southern California; gold mining in Coloma,and many others.Perhaps the best feature of this book, in my opinion at least, are the wonderful illustrations, of which there are many throughout. They are reprints of original plates, and add very much to the "old-time" look of this rather modern book.The one shortcoming, I think, is that there is no bibliography of source material. On the first page of each individual story, only the name of the author or the title of the periodical in which the story first appeared, is shown. There is no other information presented to confirm whether the particular story in question was a first-hand account,fiction or non-fiction, etc...For some of the stories, it is obvious, such as the essay by General Vallejo. Of course, one simply assumes anything written by him on early California, is! non-fiction, first-hand account. But for some of the stories, it is not so obvious. Further explanation could have only enhanced the quality of the book.All in all, though, I recommend it highly for all lovers of California history.