About this item
When gold rush fever gripped the globe in 1849, thousands of Chinese immigrants came through San Francisco seeking fortune. In The Poker Bride, Christopher Corbett uses a little-known Idaho legend as a lens into this Chinese experience. Before 1849, the Chinese in the United States were little more than curiosities. But as word spread of the discovery of gold, they soon became a regular sight in the American West. In San Francisco, a labyrinthine Chinatown arose where Chinese smuggled into the country were deposited. Polly, a young Chinese concubine, accompanied her owner to a mining camp in the highlands of Idaho. After he lost her in a poker game, Polly found her way with her new owner to an isolated ranch on the banks of the Salmon River. As the gold rush receded, it took with it the Chinese miners, but left behind Polly, who would make headlines when she emerged from the Idaho hills nearly half a century later to visit a modern city and tell her story.
About the Author
Christopher Corbett is the author of The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West (Atlantic Monthly, 2010) and Orphans Preferred: The Twisted Truth and Lasting Legend of the Pony Express (Random House/Broadway Books, 2003). He is also the author of the novel Vacationland (Viking/Penguin, 1986).Corbett is a 1973 graduate of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. A former news editor with The Associated Press, Corbett began his journalism career in his native Maine. Since 1995 he has written The Back Page for Baltimore's Style magazine, twice winner of best column from the City and Regional Magazine Association and honored by the Society for Professional Journalists for best editorial writing.A Baltimore resident, Corbett is a faculty member at the University of Maryland Baltimore County where he is professor of the practice in the English Department. He was awarded the University System of Maryland Board of Regents' Faculty Award for Mentoring, 2007-2008. In 1990, Corbett was the James Thurber Journalist-In-Residence at Ohio State University. From 1990 to 1993, he was visiting journalist at Loyola College in Baltimore. His journalism has appeared in major American newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, The Los Angeles Times and The Philadelphia Inquirer.
