Description
Book SynopsisWhen readers see the names Mark Twain or Dan De Quille, fake news may not be the first thing that comes to mind. But these legendary journalists were some of the original fake news writers in Nevada's early years.
Frontier Fake News puts a spotlight on the hoaxes, feuds, pranks, outright lies, and other literary devices utilized by a number of the Silver State's frontier newsmen during the mid-19th and early 20th centuries.
While Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), who got his start at Virginia City's
Territorial Enterprise, and Dan De Quille (William Wright), who some felt was a better writer than Twain, are the best known members of the Sagebrush School of Writers, author Richard Moreno includes others such as Fred Hart, who reported on the activities of a fake social club for Austin's
Reese River Reveille, and William Forbes, who enjoyed sprinkling clever puns with political undertones in his news columns. Moreno traces the beginnings of genuine fake news from founding father Benjamin Franklin's reporting to the fake news articles of New York and Baltimore papers in the early 1800s. But these examples are only a prelude to the amazing accounts of petrified men, freeze-inducing solar armor, blood-curdling massacres, and other nonsense stories that appeared in Nevada's frontier newspapers and beyond.
Trade Review"Rich Moreno's inviting, graceful writing combined with an intriguing topic, central to the western experience, is a welcome addition to regional literature.
Frontier Fake News is a delightful book."—Ronald M. James, Nevada state historic preservation officer (retired), author of
The Roar and the Silence: A History of Virginia City and the Comstock Lode"Moreno is one of the leading, most experienced writers on Nevada history and he did a masterful job of telling the story of these gifted, quirky writers . . . weaving together their writings, the analysis of scholars, and his own interpretation, to present them in full, living color, warts and all. I
loved this book!"—Martin Griffith, Associated Press journalist, 1985-2015
Table of Contents
- Cover Page
- Copyright Page
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Chapter Introduction: In on the Joke
- Chapter 1. A Peculiar Relationship with the Truth
- Man-Bats on the Moon
- Edgar Allan Poe's Flight of Fancy
- A Hoax to Disprove a Hoax
- "A Shocking Sabbath Carnival of Death"
- Meanwhile, out West
- A Sidebar—Twentieth-Century Scientific Hoaxes
- Chapter 2. The Sagebrush School
- An Exclusive Club
- Bret Harte's West
- The Devil's Typographer
- Renaissance Men
- Chapter 3. The Humorist
- How It All Began
- Trading a Pickax for a Pen
- News Is Serious Business—or Not
- "Mark One, Mark Twain"
- Foils and Feuds
- Pushing the Limits
- Going Too Far
- Chapter 4. The Master
- Joining the Team
- The "Quaints"
- Big Bonanza
- Chapter 5. The Liar
- The Real Lyin' Jim
- Truth Be Damned
- Chapter 6. The Scribe
- A Social Club Is Born
- Moving On
- The Story of the Wabuska Mangler
- An Appealing Opportunity
- Writing About "Sumpthin" Peculiar
- Making History
- Chapter 8. The Diarist
- The April Fools' Day "Sell"
- The Pranksters
- >From Good Times to Bad
- Chapter 9. The Vagabond
- Birth of Semblins
- The Wandering Years
- That "Major" Title
- The Time Two Women Fell in Love
- "A Few 'Sticksful' of Fiction"
- Coming into His Own
- Politics Comes Calling
- A Good Man
- Rollin M. Daggett
- The Enterprise Goes Dark
- Chapter 12. The Descendants
- "Luscious Lucius" and Charles Clegg
- The Enterprise Is Reborn
- "The Wild and Wooly School"
- The Bob Richards Era
- Chapter 13. The Wine of Life
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- About the Author
