The autobiography (originally published in 1891) of Hubert Howe Bancroft who was the founder of the Bancroft Library of Western Americana. He lived and recorded pioneer California as a newspaper man and studied these times as one of the great historians.The book consists of a fascinating series of essays outlining Bancroft’s career as a historian, collector and publisher. Chapter XI, Some of my Assistants, has brief sketches of Henry Oak, Thomas Savage, Frances Fuller Victor, and Ivan Petroff, among others, is especially interesting.