Life Amongst the Modocs: Unwritten History

First printed in 1873, Life Amongst the Modocs is based on Joaquin Miller's years among the mining towns and Indian camps of northernmost California during the tumultuous 1850s.

As a nature writer, Miller was among the first to capture the fierce power and sublime beauty of California’s wild landscape. He was also a maverick in his portrayal of the state’s emotional landscape, dealing as no one has before or since with themes such as loneliness and defeat, melancholy and rage, weakness and strength, joy and loyalty.

Although Joaquin Miller is widely viewed as one of the “founding fathers” of the literature of the west, this new edition of his classic work proves him to be a writer of considerable power and appeal, with something fresh and vital to say to the readers of today.

Joaquin Miller, born Cincinnatus Hiner Miller in 1837, was a colorful, controversial, and important figure in early California literature.

Malcolm Margolin founded Heyday in 1974. Margolin is author of several books, including The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco–Monterey Bay Area, named by the San Francisco Chronicle as one of the hundred most important books of the twentieth century by a western writer. He has received dozens of prestigious awards and helped found the Bay Nature Institute and the Alliance for California Traditional Artists.

Alan Rosenus, a historian and writer, has reintroduced a number of California classics, including The Indian History of the Modoc War, Joaquin Miller’s Life Amongst the Modocs, and Selected Writings of Joaquin Miller. A grantee of the National Endowment for the Arts, Rosenus has taught at Coe College, the College of Marin, and San Francisco State University.