Description
This major new biography of one of San Francisco's most influential families makes use of the extensive Bourn family papers from the Bancroft Library to tell the rich history of the Bourn family and its influence on the development of San Francisco and California's Gold Country.

Reviews
“Author/historian Egan tells a good story, a skill too often overlooked when it comes to writing history.” —Elisabeth Sherwin, The Davis Enterprise, 26 December 1999

“Egan’s sparse, no-nonsense prose creates a direct and readable narrative; and the biography, which relies on extensive collections of the Bourn papers at the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley, integrates the lives of these two influential men in the business, social, and political history of San Francisco and its western satrapies in an admirable fashion. The author sets forth quite clearly the numerous business areas in which these titans of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were involved. He also highlights how these very successful businessmen in this essentially frontier community sought to enhance their lives in some broader context, including philanthropy, a hankering for the lifestyle of a European grandee, and a taste for exquisite country estates with the enduring magnificence of Filoli.” —Charles A. Fracchia, Nob Hill Gazette, February 1999

“Egan tells the Bourns’ story with all the colorful detail and sweeping sense of epic drama that the characters and their times demand. No reader interested in California’s colorful past can afford to ignore this major new family biography.” —Woodland Democrat, 5 November 1998

“Egan, an acclaimed California historian, makes use of the extensive Bourn family papers in this rich and lively history of the Bourn family and its influence on the development of San Francisco.” —R. M. Hyser, CHOICE, April 1999