The Tennessee Letters is a 187-page, 7"x10", hardback book with dustcover, illustrated with J. Ross Browne sketches from A Peep at Washoe & Washoe Revisited. Richard Allen, an attorney, writing letters to the San Francisco Herald between 1857 & 1860 under the name "Tennessee," provides lively & entertaining accounts of frontier travelers on the Emigrant Trail over the Sierra mountains. In the style of the time & reminiscent of the writings of Mark Twain, "Tennessee" sent accounts of life & death spiced with frontier humor. The reports of "Tennessee" tell of the discovery of gold & silver, of the beginning of a ranching & farminng industry on the east side of the Sierra, & of early law & justice, sometimes swift & graphic. Richard Allen, during his time in Genoa, Nevada, took part in two well-known criminal cases involving action by citizens--the trial of "Lucky Bill" Thorington & the shooting of Sam Brown. The reader will enjoy the letters written by "Tennessee" to the people of San Francisco up until his untimely death by gunshot at the hand of his own doctor, May 25, 1870.… (more)