Leland Stanford

Leland Stanford is represented in the linked historical fiction through social change and the pressures of ordinary life and family, marriage and personal loyalty. These works approach the figure through the surrounding events, relationships and political conflicts rather than through a standalone biography.

In John Jakes’s California Gold, Chance encounters figures such as Leland Stanford, William Randolph Hearst, Ambrose Bierce and Theodore Roosevelt as his pursuit of success repeatedly tests the people he loves and the principles he claims to possess.