Eurasia

Small paperback, 5"x8" with 83 pages. Has wear around edges including spine. This is the rare first edition of this book published in 1914 but undated. Eurasia by Christopher Evans. Published by The James H. Barry Company, San Francisco. This book sold for 25 cents when published. Christopher Evans was an alleged train robber with his brother John Sontag. While in prison he wrote Eurasia, outlining an ideal republic. Christopher Evans (1847-1916 ) holds a place in California history because he was ( in his day ) a famous train robber. He robbed trains because his friends had their land taken ( his opinion ) from the Southern Pacific, ( the big four: Clocker, Hopkins, Huntington and Stanford.) and wanted to get back at them. Eventually he was tracked down by a sheriffs posse and shot and killed the sheriff and was captured and sentenced to death. But he was a folk hero in California and so he was only sentenced to life. William Randolph Hearst took up his cause and he was pardoned in 1910. This book is undated but the only copy at the California State Library, Sacramento, has a date stamp entered into the library collection of 1914. This book is an utopian novel of the progressive movement.