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Tennessee's Partner
This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.
60 pages, Paperback
First published February 12, 2001
About the author
Bret Harte
3,206 books64 followersPeople note American writer Francis Bret Harte for
The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches
(1870), his best-known collection of his stories about California mining towns.
People best remember this poet for his short-story fiction, featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the Gold Rush. In a career, spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern United States to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but people most often reprinted, adapted, and admired his tales of the Gold Rush.
Parents named him after Francis Brett, his great-grandfather. Bernard Hart, paternal grandfather of Francis and an Orthodox Jewish immigrant, flourished as a merchant and founded the New York stock exchange. Henry, father of the young Francis, changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte. Later, Francis preferred that people know his middle name, which he spelled Bret with only one t.
An avid reader as a boy, Harte at 11 years of age published his first work, a satirical poem, titled "Autumn Musings", now lost. Rather than attracting praise, the poem garnered ridicule from his family. As an adult, he recalled to a friend, "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse". His formal schooling ended at 13 years of age in 1849.
People best remember this poet for his short-story fiction, featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the Gold Rush. In a career, spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern United States to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but people most often reprinted, adapted, and admired his tales of the Gold Rush.
Parents named him after Francis Brett, his great-grandfather. Bernard Hart, paternal grandfather of Francis and an Orthodox Jewish immigrant, flourished as a merchant and founded the New York stock exchange. Henry, father of the young Francis, changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte. Later, Francis preferred that people know his middle name, which he spelled Bret with only one t.
An avid reader as a boy, Harte at 11 years of age published his first work, a satirical poem, titled "Autumn Musings", now lost. Rather than attracting praise, the poem garnered ridicule from his family. As an adult, he recalled to a friend, "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse". His formal schooling ended at 13 years of age in 1849.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 21, 2022
I do not think we ever knew his real name.
In this mid 19th-century California mining community, people are known by nicknames. Tennessee's Partner is never known except in relation to Tennessee. And the "I" that opens this story is never further revealed, or identified, but is really the voice of the community, a reflection of general feeling and observation; gossip too, as things become known.
A simple short story, a tale of a male bond that survives the strains and struggles of hardship. It's hard to talk about the plot or the characters without giving too much away. The tone is that of the mining camp — “where all sentiment was modified by a strong sense of humour."
I am not familiar with the work of Bret Harte so cannot say if this story is typical.
In this mid 19th-century California mining community, people are known by nicknames. Tennessee's Partner is never known except in relation to Tennessee. And the "I" that opens this story is never further revealed, or identified, but is really the voice of the community, a reflection of general feeling and observation; gossip too, as things become known.
A simple short story, a tale of a male bond that survives the strains and struggles of hardship. It's hard to talk about the plot or the characters without giving too much away. The tone is that of the mining camp — “where all sentiment was modified by a strong sense of humour."
I am not familiar with the work of Bret Harte so cannot say if this story is typical.
August 6, 2015
I have arranged my thoughts into a haiku:
"Despite bad choices
Like love, friendship's sometimes blind,
No matter the end."
"Despite bad choices
Like love, friendship's sometimes blind,
No matter the end."
March 15, 2019
Reading Bret Harte’s Tennessee’s Partner is a satisfying read. On the surface, it is humorous and sentimental, yet a glimpse below the surface of the narrative inspires questions and contemplation about the intent of the characters and the author. What really happened here?
October 9, 2015
Great example of regionalism and the complexities of dialect. This would complement any of Twain's classics really well.
October 30, 2018
It is a rather odd short story about a business partner who stays loyal to his colleague no matter what he does or what crime he commits.
March 2, 2019
This short story is about Tennessee and Tennessee's Partner. I felt like it was very difficult to keep up with at first. I couldn't understand who was doing what, and had to have it explained to me that the wife did belong to Tennessee's Partner and then the wife ran off with Tennessee. I understand that it's a story about friendship and loyalty, but I didn't like the style of writing very well or agree with the characters much.
July 6, 2017
Like Guy de Maupassant's Two Friends, this is a short story about friendship. It comes alive as the two men face a difficult, and ultimately fatal, outcome. I enjoyed it.
March 13, 2020
A pretty good story. It has good pacing and is easy to understand. I would recommend reading it.
December 7, 2021
you FOOLS. that isn't his partner, that's his HUSBAND.
December 5, 2023
cowboys are frequently secretly fond of each other
January 16, 2024
Short, but good short story that is a good introduction to the work of Harte.
September 19, 2024
partners or ‘pardners’ ??
April 21, 2015
This is a rather cryptic story of an inscrutable man that made me think deeply about the nature of friendship along with the dire, emotionally barren environments people often find themselves living in. With the setting of the story in Poker Flats, a fictional gold mining town of the late 19th century, the story takes on the cloak of frontier justice with its accessory population of desperate men living on the fringe of civilization. Though a short story, Harte was able to contrast this frontier, gold rush wildness with the simple, basic need of friendship every man has. The result leaves the reader pondering over what is truly important in a person's life.
Recommended!
Recommended!
February 2, 2013
This is a story about loyalty of a very simple man for his partner even though his partner has stolen his wife and was a highwayman robber.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews