The letters of Mary Baker Eddy to Augusta E. Stetson, C.S.D., written between 1889 and 1909, are reproduced from the Manuscript Collection in The Huntington Library, San Marino, California. This priceless collection of letters, written over a period of twenty years, breathes the spirit of genuine Christian Science, and reveals Mary Baker Eddy's love for her "best beloved" student, Augusta E. Stetson. Original publication of Emma Publishing Society. Burgundy cloth; color portrait; 113 pages; Emma Publishing Society, 1990.

Huntington is a household name for anyone in Southern California. The name is everywhere in Los Angeles due to the tremendous influence this metropolitan entrepreneur had on the development of one of America's largest cities.

His start in big business was with the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, where his uncle served as the company's president. He showed tremendous skill and quickly ascended in the business world to become one of the most powerful businessmen in the United States.

Although he only had a high school education, Henry Huntington possessed incredible business savvy. He succeeded in almost everything he attempted, but his work in Southern California was the crown jewel.

Friedricks points out each of the major events in Henry Huntington's life, both at the personal and professional level. He discusses both Huntington's amazing contributions to Southern California and his scandalous personal life.

The book is balanced. It keeps the reader interested. It is a definite "must read" for anyone interested in the history of Southern California or the story of a major leader in the business world during the era of American industrialization.

This is an outstanding book. It is superbly written and thoroughly researched. If your interested in the Pacific Electric or Southern Pacific, this book is a valuable addition to your bookshelf.

Mary Hallock Foote came west with her engineer husband Arthur D. Foote, a dreamer-engineer, to build dams, lay out canals, and tame the vast desert areas. While they waited through one frustration after another with various backers, she kept the family solvent with her delightful sketches and stories, all the while raising her children on the boundary of civilization. Oh, that's with the help of a proper English tutor, of course.

Her prose is grandiloquent in the early chapters, something of an annoying Victorian mannerism in my mind. She lavishes compliments with abandon on her family and associates, as well as the landscape. Thank goodness the editors carefully footnoted Mrs. Foote! Otherwise the reader wouldn't have a clue as to whom she was writing about so ecstatically. (Actually, the volume is soundly annotated and edited throughout.)

However, in the later chapters, when the family settles down in Idaho, near what was to be the highest dam in the world at the time, the Arrowrock, her prose deepens and her style strengthens. She begins to incorporate her western life, the engineers and workers lives, into her stories. The geological phrase, "Angle of Repose," emerges in this section. The prose, like the work, becomes purposeful in its passion.

Is is, after all, of Mary Hallock Foote and her husband, Arthur, that Wallace Stegner wrote in his Pulitzer prize-winning fictional account, "The Angle of Repose." Here we really get the story in the words of those who lived it.

The frustrations of engineering the dam and engineering the financial and political backing are superbly related. The latter half of the book is more than worth the slower early portion. The account it bears of life in the early western United States is a treasure of its times. I heartily recommend it.

If you revere books and are an avowed bibliophile, then Henry Huntington is someone to admire and respect. His book collection is one of the premiere collections in the world, especially his concentration of incunabula. Huntington's mammoth collection is stored in the incomparable Huntington Gardens in San Marino, California - one of the most lovely places on earth. The permanent exhibitions include a first edition of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales and numerous Shakespearian folios. Huntington's massive collection of autographs is also on display.

The story of how Huntington amassed these priceless treasures is fascinating: the amount of zeal and money he poured into this endeavor makes for a world class story. Unfortunately, this book doesn't focus enough on this aspect of his life. The narrative becomes slow, plodding and ultimately tedious. One wishes that Thorpe would have concentrated more completely on Huntington's mania for book collecting, a passion to be envied for those of us not blessed with being multi-millionaires. Instead he veers off into areas not particularly interesting, though his history of early 20th century California is exceptional.

Huntington's story is not one full of scintillating orgies, nor was he a riveting personal character, like Hearst. But this book paints a rather dour, boring picture of one of the greatest American collectors.