Dispatches from the Wild West: From Brigham Young to Mark Twain
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Fitz Hugh Ludlow’s newspaper reports from an American West on the cusp of its full settlement and exploitation. He covered life on The Overland Stagecoach amidst buffalo hunts and Civil War refugees. Ludlow also explored the gold mines of Colorado, still in full production. He brought back the first fascinating views of bigamy in the new Mormon Zion of Utah. And at the west coast end of the journey, Ludlow stumbled upon and encouraged the coming master of American literature, Mark Twain, and published alongside Twain and other worthies in San Francisco’s first literary weekly, the
Golden Era
. Ludlow burst on the literary scene in 1857 with the unlikely best seller
The Hasheesh Eater
. Written when he was just 20 years old, the book swept him into a career as a prolific novelist, short story author, arts critic, travel writer, journalist and editor. His friends and colleagues ranged from Walt Whitman to Brigham Young to Mark Twain. The material published in Ludlow’s
Collected Works
displays a depth of observation, a breadth of erudition and an appetite for extreme experience applied to the emerging modern American nation.