A Southern Methodist minister, Oscar Penn Fitzgerald (1829-1911) of North Carolina was sent to California as a missionary by his denomination in 1855. He remained for more than twenty years, winning appointment as state superintendent of public education in 1867 despite his pro-Southern position during the Civil War. In the late 1870s, Fitzgerald returned to the East, editing the Nashville Christian Advocate, 1878-1890, and accepting appointment as a Southern Methodist bishop. California sketches (1880) is the first of his books dealing with his stay in California, providing brief anecdotes...