Award-winning historian Richard Dillon deals up intriguing vignettes on sixty-three men and women who helped shaped California into the colorful state that it is. Dillon, whose work on Meriwether Lewis has appeared on the New York Times best-seller list, presents these California Pioneers in short, lively and informative sketches that capture the special qualities of their unusual and stimulating lives. Some were well-known public figures even in their own time, and some are still virtually unknown today. They all exhibited a daring and courage which put them far above the commonplace. Subjects include: Grizzly Addams, Lucky Baldwin, Black Bart, Fong Ching (alias Little Pete), Henry George, Ishi, Captain Jack, James King of William, Jack London, Ng Poon Chew, Emperor Norton, Robert Louis Stevenson, Mark Twain, Isaac Van Nuys, Tiburcio Vasquez and many more.