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Bret Harte's Gold Rush
"Outcasts of Poker Flat," "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "Tennessee's Partner," and Other Favorites

Bret Harte
Trade paper, 192 pages, (5.5 x 8.5)
ISBN: 0-930588-88-6, $13.95

These fifteen stories bring the California Gold Rush to life with their boisterous assemblage of rough-clad miners, pistol-packing preachers, iron-willed women, and philosophical gamblers. Theirs was an unpredictable world, filled with gold strikes and freak tragedies, when the wisdom of the gambler sometimes counted for more than that of the preacher; when normal rules were tossed aside and "the strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand; the best shot had but one eye."

A master storyteller, Harte weaves tales that seem to come directly from the campfire, where the spinning of yarns and swapping of lies were the highest form of entertainment. The stories presented in this volume, among his best, still have the power to engage us completely, to make us laugh out loud, and perhaps most surprisingly, to bring a tear to the eye.

Table of Contents

The Luck of Roaring Camp
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
Miggles
Tennessee's Partner
High-Water Mark
The Idyl of Red Gulch
Mr. Thompson's Prodigal
The Romance of Madrono Hollow
Wan Lee, The Pagan
How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar
Bulger's Reputation
A Yellow Dog
Dick Spindler's Family Christmas
In the Tules
Lanty Foster's Mistake

Author Biography:

Born in Albany, New York, Bret Harte came to California in 1854 at the age of eighteen and held a variety of jobs, including that of a Wells Fargo stagecoach messenger. His first collection of stories was published in 1867, and the following year he contributed "The Luck of Roaring Camp" to the Overland Monthly. The first western writer to become popular on an international scale, his writings helped shape the world's perception of the Old West. He died in England in 1902.

Reviews:

"Bret Harte's vignettes of the gold rush experience are as fresh and thrilling as when they were written."—California Historian