Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from The Poetical Works: Including the Drama of "the Two Men of Sandy Bar"
When the first number of the Overland Monthly appeared, the author, then its editor, called the publisher's attention to the lack of any distinctive Californian romance in its pages, and averred that, should no other contribution come in, he himself would supply the omission in the next number. N 0 other contribution was offered, and the author, having the plot and general idea already in his mind, in a few days sent the manuscript of The Luck of Roaring Camp to the printer. He had not yet received the proof-sheets when he was suddenly summoned to the office of the publisher, whom he found standing the picture'of dismay and anxiety wrth the proof before him. The indignation and stupefac tion of the author can be well understood when he was told that the printer, instead of returning the proofs to him, submitted them to the publisher, with the emphatic declara tion that the matter thereof was so indecent, irreligious, and improper, that his proof-reader - a young lady - had wit-h difficulty been induced to continue its perusal, and that he, as a friend of the publisher and a well-wisher of the magazine, was impelled to present to him personally this shameless evidence of the manner in which the editor was imperilling the future of that enterprise. It should be premised that the critic was a man of character and standing, the head of a large printing establishment, a church member, and, the author thinks, a deacon. In which circumstances the pub lisher frankly admitted to the author that, while he could not agree with all of the printer's criticisms, he thought the story open to grave objection, and its publication of doubtful expediency.
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