ABSTRACT
[In 1899 the “Passenger Department” of the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad published a paperback book, To California and Back, that it had commissioned by one C.A.Higgins, now otherwise unknown. The Santa Fe wished Higgins to advertise that a “comprehensive tour of the West” was possible over the “proprietary lines” of the company. The book is a frank attempt to solicit business by advertising the wonders the traveler will see, starting from and returning to Chicago. But To California and Back is no brochure. Higgins took the chance to write 175 closely observed, finely detailed pages about the West, just after the closing of the frontier. Victorianists will recognize John Ruskin’s influence, but also the model of Henry Mayhew’s carefully reported excursions into London’s lower depths, London Labour and the London Poor. Higgins’s book, now extremely rare, was printed on fine paper, almost every page of which was richly illustrated with line drawings by J.T. McCutcheon, otherwise as unknown as Higgins, many included here.
