Clover began his journalistic career at the age of 18 on a paper published by the
Chicago Board of Trade. Jane Apostol writes of how someone offered him a job at the
Chicago Times if he acquired some life experience, so he set off on a round-the-world journey, which he documented in three of his books. She writes that "Clover set out in 1880 with fifty dollars in his pocket, and traveled 40,000 miles in sixteen months. With luck and pluck he made his way to the South Pacific and back, earning money en route as a sailor, a bookmaker's clerk, a circus roustabout, and a circus performer." He was present at the final
ghost dance of the
Hunkpapa Lakota Chief
Sitting Bull, and was said to be the last white person to see him alive. From 1889 to 1893 he served as a correspondent for the
Chicago Herald. From 1894 to 1900 he was managing editor of the
Chicago Evening Post. In 1900 Clover and family moved to Los Angeles, where he worked briefly for the
Los Angeles Times before taking over editorship of the rival
Los Angeles Evening Express. In 1905 he established his own paper, the short-lived
Los Angeles Evening News. Clover then took over the Los Angeles
Graphic, which he edited from 1908 to 1916. He also bought the
Pasadena Daily News in 1912, but was unable to make it successful. Selling the
Graphic in 1916, he moved the family to
Richmond, Virginia after purchasing the
Richmond Evening Journal, forming a literary club with
Orie Latham Hatcher and others at the
Woman's Professional Building. The club was occasionally hosted by
James Branch Cabell. After its demise in 1920, the family returned to Los Angeles, and he became editor of
Los Angeles Saturday Night. In 1924 he took over the long-running weekly magazine,
The Argonaut, with staff in both Los Angeles and San Francisco. == Personal life ==