Dear America - Seeds of Hope- The Gold Rush Diary of Susanna Fairchild, California Territory, 1849

Susanna Fairchild and her family are on board a ship sailing from New York to the West, where they plan to start a new life in Oregon. But tragedy strikes when Susanna's mother is lost to the sea. Hearing stories of great wealth, Susanna's physician father decides he wants to join the hordes of men rushing to California to mine for gold. Colorful, irreverent, romantic, skeptical, a master of comic asides, a bittersweet humorist, and an unflinching critic of human pretensions, Mark Twain speaks to us across time with verve and wisdom. On the occasion of the centennial of his death, Oxford is issuing a paperback set of our landmark 29 volume collection, The Oxford Mark Twain. In addition to gathering together most of the writings ever published by Twain in the U.S., each volume is introduced by one of our most eminent writers. Their essays combine critical insights and personal appreciations of Twain as a fellow writer. An interpretive essay by a leading scholar that sets the book in its context concludes each volume. At the heart of each is a facsimile edition of Twain's original which captures its contemporary flavor. Many include original illustrations which suggest the life and times of the books in a way that other editions cannot. This remarkable offering will be treasured by all lovers of literature.