The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West
by: Corbett Christopher

Hardcover. NY, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1st, 2010, Book: Very Good, Dust Jacket: Very Good, Hardcover in a bright, unclipped dust jacket. 218 pages, b&w illustrations. When gold rush fever gripped the globe in 1849, thousands of Chinese immigrants came through San Francisco on their way to seek their fortunes. They were called sojourners, for they never intended to stay. Polly, a young Chinese concubine, was brought by her owner to a remote mining camp in the highlands of Idaho. There 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 in central Idaho. As the gold rush receded, it took with it the Chinese miners-or their bones, which were disinterred and shipped back to their homeland in accordance with Chinese custom. But it left behind Polly, who would make headlines. Clean copy.