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Bayard Taylor (1825-1878) was already a well-established writer when he traveled to California as special correspondent for the New York Tribune in the summer of 1849. On his return to New York, Taylor established himself not only as one of America's great travel writers but as a true man of letters, producing distinguished novels and poems as well as nonfiction for the next quarter century. Eldorado (1850) consists of Taylor's rewritten dispatches to his paper. The first volume contains his descriptions of his voyage to California via the Isthmus; the Pacific Coast of Mexico and California; the cities of San Francisco, Sacramento, Stockton, and Monterey; visits to gold fields at Sonora and the Mokelumne River; and the state Constitutional Convention.

When news of the madness of California's gold rush hit New York, Horace Greeley, publisher of the New York Tribune, looked about for a reporter to send. Taylor, thoughtful, and at the same time fully engaged in the madness, offered his readers detailed, finely crafted descriptions of the remarkable wealth and the harsh conditions produced by the gold rush.