Subscribe to Read | $0.00
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Join today and start reading your favorite books for Free!
Quick and Easy Sign Up!
It takes less then 1 minute to sign up, then you can enjoy Unlimited eBooks.
Read Anywhere and on Any Device!
Rate this book!
Write a review?
The tale telling of Bret Harte gives one a look at the many places and people he met in his roaming during his youthful days. While I did not particularly like 'The Luck of the Roaring Camp', it is the one I will long remember when I think of this author. My favorites in this collection are 'The Legend of Monte del Diablo', 'The Outcasts of Poker Flat', 'Tennessee's Partner', 'How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar, and 'Wan Lee, the Pagan'. Harte has a fantastic talent for weaving a wonderful st...
great historical fiction in the form of short stories.
Interesting, fairly entertaining stories by a minor talent who may have had quite a bit of influence on the genre. Good selection, great introduction, generally inadequate and overly fussy annotation: which reader needs to be told in a footnote that 'Milton' is 'the 16th century author of Paradise Lost'? And on the other hand some puzzling remarks, that might benefit from some historical research, go unglossed.Still, the introduction is worth reading.
Kind of a Mark Twain for California.
I heard about Bret Harte years ago when reading a run-down of western fiction, so figured I would give this a shot. All the stories are short ones, ten pages being around the average, and the max. This stuff was written in the 1800's, so be prepared for the writing to be a bit different-this is not Louie L'Amour.Overall, it is good stuff. The writing was solid, the author does a good job reflecting the language of the times, and these are just nice little snapshots of life back in the Old West.
In his essay 'Rudyard Kipling', Orwell mentions Dickens in Camp by Bret Harte as an example of a 'good bad poem'. Without doubt the poem is a sentimental, heartfelt kind, perhaps a little too simple and honest and disallowing any new or subversive feeling- but it's also gentle and pleasing, especially prefaced with some indication of the influence Dickens had on Harte as given at http://www.fullbooks.com/Dickens-in-C...Hope to read the stories mentioned which impressed Dickens along with the res...
Fascinating historical fiction. It really puts you there (and I'm partial to it because it's not only the history of my state, but the general areas that I've known my entire life).
I've become fascinated with this whole period of American History (ie. The Goldrush) which is why I decided to finally read this. What I did not realize is that Harte actually blazed the trail for the kind of writing in which the characters were ordinary Americans who cursed a lot, a genre which was improved upon by Mark Twain. These stories were immensely popular when they were first written even if they seem to be a strange mixture of melodrama and comedy. By the standards of the time (which t...
Mark Twain and Charles Dickens thought Bret Harte was the king of western American literature, yet their works are much better known today than his. Harte's stories and characters could justifiably be seen as the inspiration for O. Henry and Damon Runyon but, again, they are household names and his is not. After reading this collection of short stories, poetry, "condensed novels" and essay I believe I understand why. The writing just doesn't stand the test of time. Some stories go nowhere or end...
