“The Tall Four” is a melodrama that takes place during post-U.S. Civil War confusion in which mistaken identities, false names, and false deaths play a role. The novel was published as “Unfortunate Entanglements” in the St. Joseph Herald as a weekly serial that ran from Sunday, May 2, 1880, through Sunday, November 21, 1880. The handwritten and the published version differ slightly in word choice, but the 35-chapter novel is essentially the same.