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Josephine Clifford
b. 1838
A sharp, adventurous 19th-century journalist and fiction writer, she built a literary career after personal upheaval and became part of the American West’s magazine world. Her life carried her from Europe to New Mexico and California, where she wrote with resilience and curiosity.
1 Audiobook
Overland Tales
by Josephine Clifford
About the author
Born in 1838, she is generally known as Josephine Clifford McCracken, a writer and journalist whose life stretched across Europe and the American West. Reliable sources identify her as someone who rebuilt her career through writing after major personal losses and upheaval.
In California, she worked in literary journalism and was connected with Overland Monthly, where she served as an editorial assistant to Bret Harte. She also wrote fiction and articles of her own, earning a place in the newspaper and magazine culture of the late 19th century.
Her story is remembered not just for what she published, but for the determination behind it: travel, reinvention, and a working writer’s life shaped by difficult circumstances. That mix of grit and literary ambition makes her an especially interesting figure in American regional writing.