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Selected Stories and Sketches
In the 1870s Bret Harte was the most widely read and well-paid author in the United States. Stories such as The Luck of Roaring Camp --the tale of a Gold Rush community that thrilled readers upon its publication in 1868--virtually invented California as a subject for literature and exerted a
profound influence on the development of the short story form in America. This collection contains his best work and demonstrates Harte's remarkable control of reader response, his treatment of repressed passion and male anxieties, and his sympathy for marginal members of frontier society.
profound influence on the development of the short story form in America. This collection contains his best work and demonstrates Harte's remarkable control of reader response, his treatment of repressed passion and male anxieties, and his sympathy for marginal members of frontier society.
- GenresShort StoriesPoetry
332 pages, Paperback
First published April 13, 1995
About the author
Bret Harte
3,174 books63 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 of 1 review
September 13, 2009
Did we all have to read 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat' somewhere in grade school? It is still a wonderful story. Harte wrote poetry as well as plays and short stories. Most are in the vain of Twain. (Ooo, I like that . . . The Vain of Twain -- good title for something.)
A Moral Vindicator
Bret Harte
If Mr. Jones, Lycurgus B.,
Had one peculiar quality,
’Twas his severe advocacy
Of conjugal fidelity.
His views of heaven were very free;
His views of life were painfully
Ridiculous; but fervently
He dwelt on marriage sanctity.
He frequently went on a spree;
But in his wildest revelry,
On this especial subject he
Betrayed no ambiguity.
And though at times Lycurgus B.
Did lay his hands not lovingly
Upon his wife, the sanctity
Of wedlock was his guaranty.
But Mrs. Jones declined to see
Affairs in the same light as he,
And quietly got a decree
Divorcing her from that L. B.
And what did Jones, Lycurgus B.,
With his known idiosyncrasy?
He smiled,—a bitter smile to see,—
And drew the weapon of Bowie.
He did what Sickles did to Key,—
What Cole on Hiscock wrought, did he;
In fact, on persons twenty-three
He proved the marriage sanctity.
The counselor who took the fee,
The witnesses and referee,
The judge who granted the decree,
Died in that wholesale butchery.
And then when Jones, Lycurgus B.,
Had wiped the weapon of Bowie,
Twelve jurymen did instantly
Acquit and set Lycurgus free.
A Moral Vindicator
Bret Harte
If Mr. Jones, Lycurgus B.,
Had one peculiar quality,
’Twas his severe advocacy
Of conjugal fidelity.
His views of heaven were very free;
His views of life were painfully
Ridiculous; but fervently
He dwelt on marriage sanctity.
He frequently went on a spree;
But in his wildest revelry,
On this especial subject he
Betrayed no ambiguity.
And though at times Lycurgus B.
Did lay his hands not lovingly
Upon his wife, the sanctity
Of wedlock was his guaranty.
But Mrs. Jones declined to see
Affairs in the same light as he,
And quietly got a decree
Divorcing her from that L. B.
And what did Jones, Lycurgus B.,
With his known idiosyncrasy?
He smiled,—a bitter smile to see,—
And drew the weapon of Bowie.
He did what Sickles did to Key,—
What Cole on Hiscock wrought, did he;
In fact, on persons twenty-three
He proved the marriage sanctity.
The counselor who took the fee,
The witnesses and referee,
The judge who granted the decree,
Died in that wholesale butchery.
And then when Jones, Lycurgus B.,
Had wiped the weapon of Bowie,
Twelve jurymen did instantly
Acquit and set Lycurgus free.
Displaying 1 of 1 review