A Crack in the Edge of the World (53 page)

Hence one of the most vexing problems when examining, soberly, reports of the more lurid aspects of the disaster—and in particular those that relate specifically to the fire, which seem to be the most lurid of all. What is to be believed today, and what is more prudent to disregard?

Charles Morris's book certainly belongs to the latter category, as do all too many others that were written at the time. Official reports, though they are more staid and not necessarily entirely correct themselves, seem generally to be the better bet. And modern accounts have generally kept well away from the suspect material, such as the ear gnawing, unless there is written proof—a police report, a note in a coroner's record—that it did in fact occur.

The bibliography that follows includes many books that consider very specific aspects of the story: the insurance claims, say, or the mechanics behind strike-slip faulting. These are all invariably entirely reliable. But for anyone wishing to read unimpeachably sound accounts of the event itself, books in which the earthquake stands front and center, then the choice, particularly among the older volumes, is necessarily limited. Readers would thus be well advised to choose rather carefully, and to bear in mind that, in the light of the peculiarly flexible and liberal flamboyance that has long been associated with literary San Francisco and its most notable tragedy, one piece of advice rules:
caveat lector
.

Aidala, Thomas.
The Great Houses of San Francisco
. New York: Arch Cape Press, 1987.

Allen, Terence Beckington.
San Francisco Coroner's Office: A History 1850–1980
. San Francisco: Redactors' Press, 1999.

Asbury, Herbert.
The Barbary Coast
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1933.

Bailey, Janet.
The Great San Francisco Trivia and Fact Book
. Nashville: Cumberland House, 1999.

Bain, David Howard.
Empire Express: Building the First Transcontinental Railroad
. New York: Viking Penguin, 1999.

Bally, Albert W., and Allison R. Palmer, eds.
The Geology of North America: An Overview
. Boulder, CO: Geological Society of America, 1989.

Bancroft, Hubert Howe.
Some Cities and San Francisco
. New York: Bancroft, 1907.

Barker, Malcolm E.
Three Fearful Days
. San Francisco: Londonborn Publications, 1998.

Bartleman, Frank.
Azusa Street
. New Kensington, PA: Whitaker House, 1982.

Begich, Nick, and Jeane Manning.
Angels Don't Play This HAARP: Advances in Tesla Technology
. 2nd ed. Anchorage, AK: Earthpulse Press, 2004.

Behr, H. H.
The Hoot of the Owl
. San Francisco: A. M. Robertson, 1904.

Benet, James.
A Guide to San Francisco and the Bay Region
. New York: Random House, 1963.

Bogardus, John A.
Spreading the Risks: Insuring the American Experience
. Chevy Chase, MD: Prosperity Press, 2003.

Bolt, Bruce A.
Earthquakes
. 5th ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 2003.

Bolton, Herbert Eugene.
Outpost of Empire: The Story of the Founding of San Francisco
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1939.

Brechin, Gray.
Imperial San Francisco: Urban Power, Earthly Ruin
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Bronson, William.
The Earth Shook, the Sky Burned
. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1986.

Brook, James, Chris Carlsson, and Nancy J. Peters, eds.
Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture
. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1998.

Butler, Jon, Grant Wacker, and Randall Balmer.
Religion in American Life: A Short History
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Caen, Herb.
The San Francisco Book
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1948.

———, and Dong Kingman.
San Francisco: City on Golden Hills
. New York: Doubleday, 1967.

Caughey, John Walton.
California
. 2nd ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1953.

Chang, Iris.
The Chinese in America
. New York: Viking Penguin, 2003.

Chase, Marilyn.
The Barbary Plague: The Black Death in Victorian San Francisco
. New York: Random House, 2003.

Chen, Young.
Chinese San Francisco 1850–1943
. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2000.

Clarke, Thurston.
California Fault: Searching for the Spirit of a State along the San Andreas
. New York: Ballantine Books, 1996.

Cleland, Robert Glass.
California in Our Time
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1947.

———.
From Wilderness to Empire
. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1944.

Cohen, David, Doug Menuez, and Ron Grant Tussy, eds.
Fifteen Seconds: The Great California Earthquake of 1989
. San Francisco: The Tides Foundation, 1989.

Cohen, Stan.
8.6: The Great Alaska Earthquake
. Missoula, MT: Pictorial Histories Publishing, 1995.

Collier, Michael.
A Land in Motion: California's San Andreas Fault
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.

Conrad, Barnaby.
San Francisco: A Profile with Pictures
. New York: Bramhall House, 1959.

Dalessandro, James.
1906
. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 2004.

Dana, Richard Henry.
Two Years Before the Mast
. Penguin Classics. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.

Davis, Mike.
Ecology of Fear: Los Angeles and the Imagination of Disaster
. London: Picador, 2000.

Decker, Robert, and Barbara Decker.
Volcanoes
. 3rd ed. New York: W. H. Freeman, 1997.

Delehanty, Randolph.
The Ultimate Guide to San Francisco
. San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1989.

Dickson, Samuel.
San Francisco Is Your Home
. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1947.

Dillon, Richard H. .
Embarcadero
. New York: Coward-McCann, 1959.

———.
Shanghaiing Days
. New York: Coward-McCann, 1961.

———.
The Hatchet Men
. New York: Coward-McCann, 1962.

Downs, Tom.
San Francisco
. Victoria, Australia: Lonely Planet Publications, 2002.

Eames, David B.
San Francisco Street Secrets: The Stories Behind San Francisco Street Names
. N.p.: Gem Guide Books, 1995.

Elliott, James Welsh.
Taylor & Taylor: A Reminiscence
. San Francisco: The Kemble Collections, 1985.

Erickson, Jon.
Quakes, Eruptions, and Other Geologic Cataclysms
. New York: Checkmark Books, 2001.

Fallows, Samuel.
Complete Story of the San Francisco Horror
. [Chicago?]: Hubert O. Russell, 1906.

Feldman, Jay.
When the Mississippi Ran Backwards: Empire, Intrigue, Murder and the New Madrid Earthquakes
. New York: Free Press, 2005.

Field, Maria Antonia.
Chimes of Mission Bells
. San Francisco: The Philopolis Press, 1914.

Fortey, Richard.
The Earth: An Intimate History
. London: HarperCollins, 2004.

Fradkin, Philip L.
Magnitude 8
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998.

Fritz, William J.
Roadside Geology of the Yellowstone Country
. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 1985.

Fuller, Myron L.
The New Madrid Earthquake: A Scientific Factual Field Account
. 4th ed. Marble Hill, MO: Gutenberg-Richter Publications, 1995.

Gagey, Edmond M.
The San Francisco Stage: A History
. New York: Columbia University Press, 1950.

Gentry, Curt.
The Madams of San Francisco
. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1964.

Gere, James M., and Haresh C. Shah.
Terra Non Firma
. Stanford: Stanford Alumni Association, 1984.

Gilliam, Harold.
The San Francisco Experience: The Romantic Lore behind the Fabulous Façade of the Bay Area
. New York: Doubleday, 1972.

Greer, Andrew Sean.
The Confessions of Max Tivoli
. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004.

Gudde, Erwin G.
1,000 California Place Names: The Story Behind the Naming of Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Capes, Bays, Counties and Cities
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959.

Hansen, Gladys.
San Francisco Almanac
. San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1980.

———, and Emmet Condon.
Denial of Disaster: The Untold Story and Photographs of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
. San Francisco: Cameron, 1989.

Harris, Stephen L.
Agents of Chaos
. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 1990.

Hartman, Chester.
City for Sale: The Transformation of San Francisco
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.

Heizer, Robert F., and Alan F. Almquist.
The Other Californians: Prejudice and Discrimination under Spain, Mexico and the United States to 1920
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971.

Heppenheimer, T. A.
The Coming Quake
. New York: Times Books, 1990.

Herron, Don.
The Literary World of San Francisco and Its Environs
. San Francisco: City Lights Books, 1985.

Hicks, Geoff, and Hamish Campbell.
Awesome Forces: The Natural Hazards That Threaten New Zealand
. Wellington: Te Papa Press, 1999.

Hillenbrand, Laura.
Seabiscuit: An American Legend
. New York: Random House, 2001.

Holbrook, Stewart H.
The Story of American Railroads
. New York: Crown Publishers, 1947.

Hough, Susan Elizabeth.
Earthshaking Science: What We Know (and Don't Know) about Earthquakes
. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002.

———.
Finding Fault in California: An Earthquake Tourist's Guide
. Missoula, MT: Mountain Press, 2004.

Howard, Arthur D.
Geologic History of Middle California
. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979.

Jeffers, H. Paul.
Disaster by the Bay
. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2003.

Jenkins, Olaf P., ed.
Geologic Guidebook of the San Francisco Bay Counties
. San Francisco: Department of Natural Resources Division of Mines, 1951.

Kahn, Edgar M.
Cable Car Days in San Francisco
. Oakland: Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, 1976.

Kemble, John Haskell.
San Francisco Bay: A Pictorial Maritime History
. New York: Cornell Maritime Press, 1957.

Knox, Ray, and David Stewart.
The New Madrid Fault Finders Guide
. Marble Hill, MO: Gutenberg-Richter Publications, 1995.

Konigsmark, Ted.
Geologic Trips: San Francisco and the Bay Area
. Gualala, CA: GeoPress, 1998.

Kovach, Robert L.
Early Earthquakes of the Americas
. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Kurzman, Dan.
Disaster! The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire of 1906
. New York: HarperCollins, 2001.

Leach, Frank A.
Recollections of a Mint Director
. Wolfeboro, NH: Bowers and Marina Galleries, 1987.

Lockwood, Charles.
Suddenly San Francisco: The Early Years of an Instant City
. San Francisco: San Francisco Examiner Division of the Hearst Corporation, 1978.

Longstreet, Stephen.
The Wilder Shore
. New York: Doubleday, 1968.

McDowell, Jack, ed. .
San Francisco
. Menlo Park, CA: Lane Publishing, 1977.

McGroarty, John S.
California: Its History and Romance
. Los Angeles: Grafton Publishing, 1911.

McLeod, Alexander.
Pigtails and Gold Dust
. Caldwell, ID: The Caxton Printers, 1947.

McPhee, John.
Assembling California
. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993.

———.
Annals of the Former World
. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1998.

Mader, George G., et al.
Geology and Planning: The Portola Valley Experience
. Portola Valley, CA: William Spangle, 1988.

Martin, Don, and Kay Martin.
Hiking Marin
. San Anselmo, CA: Martin Press, 1999.

Marty, Martin E., and R. Scott Appleby.
The Glory and the Power: The Fundamentalist Challenge to the Modern World
. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992.

Morris, Charles, ed.
The San Francisco Calamity by Earthquake and Fire
. Philadelphia: Geographical Society of Philadelphia, 1906.

Morris, Jan.
The World: Travels 1950–2000
. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003.

Neville, Amelia Ransome.
The Fantastic City: Memoirs of the Social and Romantic Life of Old San Francisco
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1932.

Nuttli, Otto W.
The Effects of Earthquakes in the Central United States
. 3rd ed. Marble Hill, MO: Gutenberg-Richter Publications, 1995.

Oreskes, Naomi, ed.
Plate Tectonics: An Insider's History of the Modern Theory of the Earth
. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 2001.

Orme, Antony R., ed.
The Physical Geography of North America
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

Page, Jake, and Charles Officer.
The Big One
. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.

Penick, James Lal.
The New Madrid Earthquakes
. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981.

Pollock, Christopher.
San Francisco's Golden Gate Park: A Thousand and Seventeen Acres of Stories
. Portland, OR: West Winds Press, 2001.

Reisner, Marc.
A Dangerous Place: California's Unsettling Fate
. New York: Pantheon Books, 2003.

Richards, Rand.
Historic San Francisco: A Concise History and Guide
. San Francisco: Heritage House Publishers, 2003.

Robinson, Andrew.
Earth Shock
. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002.

Rogers, John J., and M. Santosh.
Continents and Supercontinents
. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Saul, Eric, and Don Denevi.
The Great San Francisco Earthquake and Fire 1906
. Millbrae, CA: Celestial Arts, 1981.

Searight, Frank Thompson.
The Doomed City: A Thrilling Tale
. Chicago: Laird and Lee, 1906.