Description
Beginning in 1849, Alfred Doten recorded his life in minute detail for more than 54 years. His revealing daily accounts of the West's lusty mining frontier included tales of lynching, vigilante justice, shootings in the street, grand opera and theatre, stock manipulations, seances, musical soirees, and general "jollifications." Clark selected and edited the most valuable portions of Doten's massive diaries. He said he knew of no other account, fact or fiction, that so graphically presented the tragic course of a single representative life through the violent transformations brought about by the California Gold Rush and the Nevada Silver Boom.

Reviews
“This collection of essays is the best introduction in print to Walter Clark and his work. For those readers who have already been introduced, there is much to ponder.” —John Milton, Western American Literature

“The Clark Critiques is a marvelous addition to the literature of Nevada. It elevates the field to the realm of literary excellence and sets a standard to be emulated.” —Dave Basso, Reno Gazette-Journal, 26 February 1984

“This volume is unquestionably the single most valuable source yet published on Clark, and offers fresh perspectives on him as an artist and man.” —Studies in the Humanities, April 1985

“In the short years of his successful productive life, Clark made a body of fiction that is among the best American writing of the century. One can only hope that this book signals a revival of the interest that that fiction is due.” —L.L. Lee, Western Humanities Review, October 1984

“Civilization is Walter Clark’s theme; the West is his only raw material.” —Wallace Stegner

Contents
Contents
Preface
Credo, by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Part I: Walter Clark as Others Knew Him
1. Literate Voice in Nevada, by Charlton Laird
2. Walter Clark and Nevada, by James W. Hulse
3. Walter Clark: Complicated Simplicity, by Herbert Wilner
4. Walter Clark’s Frontier, by Wallace Stegner
Part II: Studies of Major Published Works
5. Clark’s Western Incident: From Stereotype to Model, by Robert B. Heilman
6. To Escape the Tiger: The Short Stories, by Max Westbrook
7. On "The Wind and the Snow of Winter," by Walter Clark
8. The Poetry of Walter Clark, by Susan Baker
9. The Gospel According to the Trembling Leaves, by Charlton Laird
10. On The Track of the Cat, by Walter Clark
11. On "The Watchful Gods," by Walter Clark
12. Problems in "The Watchful Gods" and Clark’s Revisions, by Robert M. Gorrell
13. The "Silent" Period (1951-1971), by Robert M. Clark and Charlton Laird
Part III: Walter Clark as a Literary Artist
14. Walter Clark’s "The Pretender": Two Versions, by William D. Baines
15. The Shape of Feeling: Unity of Emotion and Rhetoric in the Work of Walter Clark, by Arthur Boardman
16. On the "Voice" of Walter Clark, by Robert M. Clark
Part IV: Two Biographical Accounts of Walter Clark
17. Autobiographical Information, by Walter Clark
18. Chronology, by Robert M. Clark
Index