Frank Marryat (1826-1855) left England for California via Panama with a manservant and three hunting dogs in 1850, hoping to find material for a book like his earlier Borneo. On his return to England in 1853, Marryat married and brought his bride back to California that same year. Yellow fever contracted on shipboard forced him to cut the trip short and return to England where he died two years later. Mountains and molehills (1855) is a sportsman-tourist's chronicle of California in the early 1850s: hunting, horse races, bear and bull fights. It also includes an Englishman's bemused comments on social life in San Francisco, Stockton, and the gold fields.

"Mountains and molehills; or, Recollections of a burnt journal" by Frank Marryat. Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

After a tragic fire in San Francisco destroyed many of his possessions, including his journals, Frank Marryat rewrote, from memory, much of what he had documented during his time in California in the middle of the gold craze of 1850. This historical treasure, originally published in 1855, the year that the author died of complications from yellow fever, recreates for readers the frenzy that drew thousands of miners and prospectors to California in their rush to find gold. Empathetic readers will feel the fear of yellow fever as this harrowing Englishman crosses Panama to reach California. However, not only will readers be exposed to Marryat’s own struggles to run a hotel and mine for gold, but they will also read about hardships emigrants had to overcome, the different types of mining in California, and the differences between miners from around the world, including French miners, Chinese miners, and English miners. Chapters include: The Old Crab-Catcher Coyote Hunting Joe Bellow Field of Gold Transport Machinery to the Mine The Fireman of San Francisco And much more! Skyhorse Publishing, along with our Arcade, Good Books, Sports Publishing, and Yucca imprints, is proud to publish a broad range of biographies, autobiographies, and memoirs. Our list includes biographies on well-known historical figures like Benjamin Franklin, Nelson Mandela, and Alexander Graham Bell, as well as villains from history, such as Heinrich Himmler, John Wayne Gacy, and O. J. Simpson. We have also published survivor stories of World War II, memoirs about overcoming adversity, first-hand tales of adventure, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.