There is some controversy over whether the term “confirmed bachelor” was used during Victorian times to refer to a gay man. While this euphemism may not be the phrase’s only meaning, there are enough examples in the academic literature and within the LGBTQ community that I chose to use it with this implication. For more insight into specific terminology of the day, as well as some delightfully subjective commentary, I highly recommend the Dictionary of Americanisms, by John Russell Bartlett (New York: Bartlett and Welford, 1848).

No book is written in isolation. I am grateful to the following people for their many insights and expertise: Angela Thornton of the American Indian Library Association, who read an early draft; Marlena Montagna, an accomplished equestrian, who provided expert advice on horses and horseback riding; Jaime Lee Moyer, a critically acclaimed author of historical fiction, who helped me identify and sort through an avalanche of primary sources—diaries, lithographs, newspaper articles, daguerreotypes, etc.

For readers interested in learning more about the journey to California from the emigrants themselves, I recommend the following books, which I found invaluable:

Covered Wagon Women: Diaries & Letters from the Western Trails, 1840–1849, edited and compiled by Kenneth L. Holmes, with an introduction by Anne M. Butler (Lincoln, Nebraska: Bison Books, University of Nebraska Press, 1995)

Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey, edited by Lillian Schlissel, with a forward by Mary Clearman Blew (New York: Schocken Books, 2004 edition)

Most of all, I am grateful to my husband, C. C. Finlay, for reading this book multiple times, for applying his training as both editor and historian to key portions of text, and for listening patiently as his displaced Californian spouse waxed endlessly about her native state’s many wonders and the Gold Rush that shaped it.

Walk on Earth a Stranger is so much better for these contributions; any errors that remain are mine alone.

Today, you can hardly visit any place in California without seeing evidence of the Gold Rush. I’ve rafted down the Tuolumne River through steep cliffs of layered sediment—the result of dredging. I’ve chanced upon ancient wagon wheels, half-buried in sod, while backpacking through Emigrant Wilderness. I’ve cheered the 49ers on to multiple Super Bowl wins, toured the mines and orchards of the Sierra Nevada foothills with my friends, spent days wandering the Golden Gate. Though this book deals primarily with the overland journey in 1849, there is much more of Lee’s story—and California’s—yet to be told.

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About the Author

RAE CARSON is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Girl of Fire and Thorns series. Her books tend to contain lots of adventure, magic, and smart girls who make (mostly) smart choices. Originally from California, Rae Carson now lives in Arizona with her husband.