Bret Harte Books In Order

Novels

  1. Plain Language for Truthful James (1870)
  2. Gabriel Conroy (1875)
  3. Two Men of Sandy Bar (1876)
  4. Drift from Two Shores (1878)
  5. On the Frontier (1884)
  6. By Shore and Sedge (1885)
  7. Queen of Pirate Isle (1886)
  8. Snow-bound at Eagle’s (1886)
  9. A Millionaire of Rough-And-ready (1887)
  10. The Argonauts of North Liberty (1888)
  11. A Phyllis of the Sierras (1888)
  12. Cressy (1889)
  13. Susy, a Story of the Plains (1893)
  14. Clarence (1895)
  15. From Sand Hill to Pine (1900)
  16. On the Old Trail (1902)
  17. Openings In The Old Trail (1902)
  18. Salomy Jane’s Kiss (1910)
  19. Heathen Chinee and Wanlee, the Pagan (1924)
  20. The Right Eye of the Commander (1937)
  21. Dickens in Camp (1944)
  22. Mliss (1948)
  23. Heir of the McHulishes (1970)
  24. Gold Rush (1996)
  25. Captain Jim’s Friend (2001)
  26. The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin (2001)
  27. The Devotion of Enriguez (2001)
  28. Dick Boyle’s Business Card (2001)
  29. The Idyl of Red Gulch (2001)
  30. A California Romance (2001)
  31. Jeff Briggs’s Love Story (2002)
  32. Devil’s Ford (2003)
  33. Bohemian Days in San Francisco (2004)
  34. Bulger’s Reputation (2004)
  35. A Convert Of The Mission (2004)
  36. An Episode Of Fiddletown (2004)
  37. High-Water Mark (2004)
  38. How Ruben Allen ‘Saw Life’ in San Francisco (2004)
  39. In The Tules (2004)
  40. The Indiscretion of Elsbeth (2004)
  41. Jimmy’s Big Brother From California (2004)
  42. A Lonely Ride (2004)
  43. The Man of No Account (2004)
  44. The Mermaid of Light House Point (2004)
  45. A Mother Of Five (2004)
  46. Notes By Flood and Field (2004)
  47. A Romance Of The Line (2004)
  48. Three Vagabonds of Trinidad (2004)
  49. Under The Eaves (2004)
  50. A Vision Of The Fountain (2004)
  51. A Widow Of The Santa Ana Valley (2004)
  52. A Yellow Dog (2004)
  53. The Youngest Miss Piper (2004)
  54. Found At Blazing Star (2004)
  55. Fascinating San Francisco (2005)
  56. Her Letter, His Answer and Her Last Letter (2005)
  57. An Apostle of the Tules (2005)
  58. A Bluegrass Penelope (2005)
  59. The Conspiracy of Mrs. Bunker (2005)
  60. A Drift from Redwood Camp (2005)
  61. Left Out on Lone Star Mountain (2005)
  62. A Secret of Telegraph Hill (2005)
  63. A Ship of ’49 (2005)
  64. Spanish and American Legends (2005)
  65. Their Uncle from California (2005)
  66. The Transformation of Buckeye Camp (2005)

Collections

  1. The Luck of Roaring Camp (1870)
  2. Mrs. Skaggs’s Husbands (1873)
  3. Echoes of the Foot-Hills (1875)
  4. Tales of the Argonauts (1875)
  5. Wan Lee (1876)
  6. Thankful Blossom (1877)
  7. The Story of a Mine (1878)
  8. The Twins of Table Mountain (1879)
  9. Flip, and Other Stories (1882)
  10. In the Carquinez Woods (1883)
  11. Maruja (1885)
  12. The Crusade of the Excelsior (1887)
  13. Tales, Poems and Sketches (1887)
  14. Heritage of Dedlow Marsh (1889)
  15. A Waif of the Plains (1890)
  16. A Ward of the Golden Gate (1890)
  17. A First Family of Tasajara (1891)
  18. A Sappho of Green Springs (1891)
  19. Colonel Starbottle’s Client (1892)
  20. Sally Dows (1893)
  21. The Bell-Ringer of Angel’s (1894)
  22. A Protegee of Jack Hamlin’s (1894)
  23. In a Hollow of the Hills (1895)
  24. Barker’s Luck (1896)
  25. The Three Partners (1897)
  26. Stories in Light and Shadow (1898)
  27. Tales of Trail and Town (1898)
  28. Miggles (1899)
  29. Mr. Jack Hamlin’s Mediation (1899)
  30. The Ancestors of Peter Atherly (1900)
  31. Under the Redwoods (1901)
  32. Tales of the West (1902)
  33. A Niece of Snapshot Harry’s (1903)
  34. Trent’s Trust (1903)
  35. The Complete Works of Bret Harte (1911)
  36. Poems and Stories (1912)
  37. Tennessee’s Partner (1912)
  38. Stories and Poems (1914)
  39. The Works of Bret Harte (1914)
  40. Sketches of the Sixties (1926)
  41. The Wild West (1930)
  42. Selected Stories of Bret Harte (1932)
  43. How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s Bar (1940)
  44. Tales of the Gold Rush (1944)
  45. The Best Short Stories of Bret Harte (1947)
  46. The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1952)
  47. Bret Harte the Goldrush Storyteller (1986)
  48. The Lost Galleon (1987)
  49. The Ransom of Red Chief (1990)
  50. Illiad of Sandy Bar (1992)
  51. Sketches, Stories and Bohemian Papers (2002)
  52. Urban Sketches (2002)
  53. New Burlesques (2003)
  54. Frontier Stories (2004)
  55. Old West in the Old World (2006)
  56. The Wild ‘West’ Bunch (2018)

Novellas

Non fiction

  1. The Lectures of Bret Harte (1909)
  2. Letters of Bret Harte (1926)
  3. Bret Harte’s California (1990)
  4. Selected Letters of Bret Harte (1997)

Novels Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Novellas Book Covers

Non fiction Book Covers

Bret Harte Books Overview

Gabriel Conroy

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million books. com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER in GABRIEL It was found the next morning that the party was diminished by five. Philip Ashley and Grace Conroy, Peter Dumphy and Mrs. Brackett, were missing; Dr. Paul Devarges was dead. The death of the old man caused but little excitement and no sorrow; the absconding of the others was attributed to some information which they had selfishly withheld from the remaining ones, and produced a spasm of impotent rage. In five minutes their fury knew no bounds. The lives and property of the fugitives were instantly declared forfeit. Steps were taken about twenty, I think in the direction of their flight, but finally abandoned. Only one person knew that Philip and Grace had gone together, Gabriel Conroy. On awakening early that morning he had found pinned to his blanket a paper with these words in pencil, ‘God bless dear brother and sister, and keep them until Philip and I come back with help.’ With it were a few scraps of provisions, evidently saved by Grace from her scant rations, and left as a parting gift. These Gabriel instantly turned into the common stock. Then he began to comfort the child. Added to his natural hopefulness, he had a sympathetic instinct with the pains and penalties of childhood, not so much a quality of his intellect as of his nature. He had all the physical adaptabilities of a nurse, a large, tender touch, a low persuasive Toice, pliant yet unhesitating limbs, and broad, well cushioned surfaces. During the weary journey women had instinctively intrusted babies to his charge; most of the dead had’ died in his arms; all forms and conditions of helplessness had availed themselves of his easy capacity. No one thought of thanking him. I do not think he ever expected it; he always appeared morally irresponsible and quite unconscious of…

Two Men of Sandy Bar

Publisher: B. Tauchnitz Publication date: 1877 Subjects: Drama / General Drama / American Drama / English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh Fiction / Westerns Notes: This is an OCR reprint. There may be typos or missing text. There are no illustrations or indexes. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million Books. com where you can select from more than a million books for free. You can also preview the book there.

Drift from Two Shores

1891. Illustrated. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books, The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’liss, helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. Contents: Maruja; the stories from Drift from Two Shores and By Shore and Sedge; and Thankful Blossom. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

On the Frontier

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By Shore and Sedge

On October 10, 1856, about four hundred people were camped in Tasajara Valley, California. It could not have been for the prospect, since a more barren, dreary, mono tonous, and uninviting landscape never stretched before human eye; it could not have been for convenience or contiguity, as the nearest settlement was thirty miles away; it could not have been for health or salubrity, as the breath of the ague haunted tules in the outlying Stockton marshes swept through the valley; it could not have been for space or comfort, for, encamped on an unlimited plain, men and women were huddled together as closely as in an urban tenement house, without the freedom or decency of rural isolation; it could not have been for pleasant companionship, as dejection, mental anxiety, tears, and lamentation were the dominant expression; it was not a hurried flight from present or impending calamity, for the camp had been deliberately planned, and for a week pioneer wagons had been slowly arriving; it was not an irrevocable exodus, for some had already returned to their homes that others might take their places. It was simply a religious revival of one or two denominational sects, known as a ‘camp meeting.’

Queen of Pirate Isle

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing’s Legacy Reprint Series. 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 to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world’s literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard to find books with something of interest for everyone!

Snow-bound at Eagle’s

For some moments profound silence and darkness had accompanied a Sierran stage coach towards the summit. The huge, dim bulk of the vehicle, swaying noiselessly on its straps, glided onward and upward as if obeying some myste rious impulse from behind, so faint and indefinite appeared its relation to the viewless and silent horses ahead. The shadowy trunks of tall trees that seemed to approach the coach windows, look in, and then move hurriedly away, were the only distinguishable objects. Yet even these were so vague and unreal that they might have been the mere phantoms of some dream of the half sleeping passengers; for the thickly strewn needles of the pine, that choked the way and deadened all sound, yielded under the silently crushing wheels a faint soporific odor that seemed to benumb their senses, already slipping back into unconsciousness during the long ascent. Suddenly the stage stopped. Three of the four passengers inside struggled at once into upright wakefulness. The fourth passenger, John Hale, had not been sleeping, and turned impatiently towards the window. It seemed to him that two of the moving trees had suddenly become motionless outside. One of them moved again, and the door opened quickly but quietly, as of itself.

A Millionaire of Rough-And-ready

GOLD STRIKE! Slinn has struck gold! A prospector in the Wildest West of California near the town of ‘Rough and Ready,’ dirt poor Slinn has been working a claim for weeks when he discovers a vein or bright quartz and shiny gold in his tunnel. He can finally bring his family out to California. Should he build them a mansion here in this new and wonderful territory? Or would they prefer the civilization of San Francisco? But before he can do anything, tell anyone, poor Slinn suffers a paralytic stroke. He can’t communicate to anyone, let alone enjoy his newfound riches. Years later, Alvin Mulready comes to ‘Rough and Ready.’ Sinking an artesian shaft into a shaft to make a well, Mulready strikes gold. But then Slinn’s son comes to the area and finds his father in a Sacramento hospital. The old man stirs. Gold shines in his eyes…
A classic tale of the West by the a Master of Western Fiction.

The Argonauts of North Liberty

The bell of the North Liberty Second Presbyterian Church had just ceased ringing. North Liberty, Connecticut, never on any day a cheerful town, was always bleaker and more cheerless on the seventh, when the Sabbath sun, after vainly trying to coax a smile of reciprocal kindliness from the drawn curtains and half closed shutters of the austere dwellings and the equally sealed and hard set churchgoing faces of the people, at last settled down into a blank stare of stony astonishment. On this chilly March evening of the year 1850, that stare had kindled into an offended sunset and an angry night that furiously spat sleet and hail in the faces of the worshippers, and made them fight their way to the church, step by step, with bent heads and fiercely compres sed lips, until they seemed to be carrying its forbidding portals at the point of their umbrellas.

A Phyllis of the Sierras

ReadHowYouWant publishes a wide variety of best selling books in Large and Super Large fonts in partnership with leading publishers. EasyRead books are available in 11pt and 13pt. type. EasyRead Large books are available in 16pt, 16pt Bold, and 18pt Bold type. EasyRead Super Large books are available in 20pt. Bold and 24pt. Bold Type. You choose the format that is right for you.A poignant and charming tale, this work glorifies the deep emotion of love. While characters from varying backgrounds add colour to the narrative, the theme binds the reader?s attention. Harte has portrayed a love so sincere that it is above all sorts of gains and focuses on sacrifices. To find more titles in your format, Search in Books using EasyRead and the size of the font that makes reading easier and more enjoyable for you.

Cressy

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million books. com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE GEEAT DEADWOOD MYSTEET It was growing quite dark in the telegraph office at Cottonwood, Tuolumne County, California. The office, a box like enclosure, was separated from the public room of the Miners’ Hotel by a thin partition ; and the operator, who was also news and express agent at Cottonwood, had closed his window, and was lounging by his news stand preparatory to going home. Without, the first monotonous rain of the season was dripping from the porches of the hotel in the waning light of a December day. The operator, accustomed as he was to long intervals of idleness, was fast becoming bored. The tread of mud muffled boots on the veranda, and the entrance of two men, offered a momentary excitement. He recognized in the strangers two prominent citizens of Cottonwood; and their manner bespoke business. One of them proceeded to the desk, wrote a despatch, and handed it to the other interrogatively. ‘That’s about the way the thing p’ints,’ responded his companion assentingly. ‘I reckoned it only squar to use his dientical words ?’ ‘That’s so.’ The first speaker turned to the operator with the despatch. ‘How soon can you shove her through ?’ The operator glanced professionally over the address and the length of the despatch. ‘Now,’ he answered promptly. ‘And she gets there ?’ ‘To night. But there’s no delivery until to morrow.’ ‘Shove her through to night, and say there’s an extra twenty left here for delivery.’ The operator, accustomed to all kinds of extravagant outlay for expedition, replied that he would lay this proposition with the despatch, before the San Francisco office. He then took it and read it and re read it. He preserved the usual professional apathy, had doubtless sent many more enigmatical and mysterious messages, butn…

Susy, a Story of the Plains

Bret Harte loved the West and its people. Bret Harte was Albany, New York, in 1839. His father was a professor of Greek at Albany College, and died during the boyhood of his son. Bret Harte, after a common school education, went with his mother to California at the age of seventeen. There he became a jack of all trades, but, contrary to the old saying, he became master of one short story writing. At various times he was a teacher, miner, printer, express messenger, secretary of the San Francisco Mint, and editor. The stir of life in San Francisco stimulated Bret Harte in the years following the gold rush of 1849. Here he found human nature in the raw. There was no veneer. The community had not yet turned aside from digging and panning, winning and losing, long enough to look to its lawless community affairs. It is as a story teller that Bret Harte painted the most thrilling pictures of that time. Bret Harte wrote a great deal. Forty four volumes were published by him between 1867 and 1898. He was professor in the University of California for one year. He moved to New York in 1871 and lived there until 1878. During the next two years he was United States Consul at Crefeld, Germany, and from 1880 to 1885 Consul at Glasgow. Thereafter he lived in London, engaged in literary work. Bret Harte died at Camberley, England, on May 5, 1902.

Clarence

As Clarence Brant, President of the Robles Land Company, and husband of the rich widow of John Peyton, of the Robles Ranche, mingled with the outgoing audience of the Cosmopolitan Theatre, at San Francisco, he elicited the usual smiling nods and recognition due to his good looks and good fortune. But as he hurriedly slipped through the still lingering winter’s rain into the smart coupe that was awaiting him, and gave the order ‘Home,’ the word struck him with a peculiarly ironical significance. His home was a handsome one, and lacked nothing in appointment and comfort, but he had gone to the theatre to evade its hollow loneliness. Nor was it because his wife was not there, for he had a miserable consciousness that her temporary absence had nothing to do with his homelessness. The distraction of the theatre over, that dull, vague, but aching sense of loneliness which was daily growing upon him returned with greater vigor.

From Sand Hill to Pine

1899. Illustrated. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California, earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books, The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’liss, helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. Contents of From Sand Hill to Pine includes: A Niece of Snapshot Harry’s; A Treasure of the Redwoods; A Belle of Canada City; What Happened at the Fonda; A Jack and Jill of the Sierras; and Mr. Bilson’s Housekeeper. Also included is the story A Tourist from Injianny. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Openings In The Old Trail

Openings In The Old Trail 1902 CONTENTS PAGE I. A MERCURY OF THE FOOT HILLS . 1 FOR THE PLAINTIFF 48 11. COLONEL STARBOTTLE 111. THE LANDLORD OF THE BIG FLUME HOTEL IV. A BCICKETE HOLLOW INHERITANCE V. THE REINCARNATION OF SMITH . VI. LANTY FOSTERS MISTAKE . VII. AN ALI BABA OF THE SIERRAS . VIII. MISS PEGGYS PROTGIS IX. THE GODDESS OF EXCELSLOR…
. . OPENINGS IN THE . OLD TRAIL A MERCURY OF THE FOOT TEES IT was high hot noon on the Casket Ridge. Its very scant shade was restricted to a few dwarf Scotch firs, and was so per pendicularly cast that Leonidas Boone, seek ing shelter from the heat, was obliged to draw himself up under one of them, as if it were an umbrella. Occasionally, with a boys perversity, he permitted one bared foot to protrude beyond the sharply marked shadow until the burning sun forced him to draw it in again with a thrill of satisfaction. There was no earthly reason why he had not sought the larger shadows of the pine trees which reared themselves against the Ridge on the slope below him, except that he was a boy, and perhaps even more superstitious and opin ionated than most boys. Having got under this tree with infinite care, he had made up his mind that he would not move from it until its line of shade reached and touched a certain stone on the trail near him my he did this he did not know, but he clung to his sublime purpose with the courage and tenacity of a youthful Casabianca. He was cramped, tickled by dust and fir sprays he was supremely uncomfortable but he stayed A woodpeck*er was monotonously tapping in an adjacent pine, with measured intervals of silence, which he always firmly believed was a certain telegraphy of the birds own making a green and gold lizard flashed by his foot to stiffen itself suddenly with a rigidity equal to his own. Still he stirred not. The shadow gradually crept nearer the mystic stone a,nd touched it. He sprang up, shook himself, and prepared to go about his business. This was simply an errand to the post office at the cross roads, scarcely a mile froin his fathers house. He was already halfway there. He had taken only the better part of one hour for this desultory journey However, he now proceeded on his way, diverging only to follow a fresh rabbit track a few hundred yards, to note that the ani mal had doubled twice against the wind, and then, naturally, he was obliged to look closely for other tracks to determine its pursuers. He paused also, but only for a moment, to rap thrice on the trunk of the pine where the woodpeck*er was at work, which he knew would make it cease work for a time as it did. Having thus renewed his relations with nature, he discovered that one of the letters he was taking to the post office had slipped in some mysterious way from the bosom of his shirt, where he carried them, past his waist band into his trouser leg, and was about to make a casual delivery of itself on the trail. This caused him to take out his let ters and count them, when he found one missing. He had been given four letters to post he had only three. There was a big one in his fathers handwriting, two indis tinctive ones of his mothers, and a smaller one of his sisters that was gone Not at all disconcerted, he calmly retraced his steps, following his own tracks minutely, with a grim face and a distinct delight in the pro cess, while looking perfunctorily for the letter. In the midst of this slow progress a bright idea struck him. He walked back to the fir tree where he had rested, and found the lost missive. It had slipped out of his shirt when he shook himself. He was not particularly pleased…

Salomy Jane’s Kiss

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Gold Rush

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.

A California Romance

Francis Bret Harte 1836 1902 was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. His first literary efforts, including poetry and prose, appeared in The Californian, an early literary journal edited by Charles Henry Webb. In 1868 he became editor of The Overland Monthly, another new literary magazine, but this one more in tune with the pioneering spirit of excitement in California. His story, ‘The Luck of Roaring Camp, ‘ appeared in the magazine’s second edition, propelling Harte to nationwide fame. When word of Dickens’ death reached Harte in July of 1870, he immediately sent a dispatch across the bay to San Francisco to hold back the forthcoming publication of his Overland Monthly for twenty four hours, so that he could compose the poetic tribute, Dickens in Camp. This work is considered by many of Harte’s admirers as his masterpiece of verse, for its evident sincerity, the depth of feeling it displays, and the unusual quality of its poetic expression. The spirit of Dickens breathes through the poems and stories of Bret Harte just as the spirit of Bret Harte breathes through the poems and stories of Kipling.

Jeff Briggs’s Love Story

It was raining and blowing at Eldridge’s Crossing. From the stately pine trees on the hill tops, which were dignifiedly protesting through their rigid spines upward, to the hysterical willows in the hollow, that had whipped themselves into a maudlin fury, there was a general tumult. When the wind lulled, the rain kept up the distraction, firing long volleys across the road, letting loose miniature cataracts from the hill sides to brawl in the ditches, and beating down the heavy heads of wild oats on the levels; when the rain ceased for a moment the wind charged over the already defeated field, ruffled the gullies, scattered the spray from the roadside pines, and added insult to injury. But both wind and rain concentrated their energies in a malevolent attempt to utterly disperse and scatter the ‘Half way House,’ which seemed to have wholly lost its way, and strayed into the open, where, dazed and bewildered, unprepared and unprotected, it was exposed to the taunting fury of the blast. A loose, shambling, disjointed, hastily built structure representing the worst features of Pioneer renaissance it rattled its loose window sashes like chattering teeth, banged its ill hung shutters, and admitted so much of the invading storm, that it might have blown up or blown down with equal facility.

Devil’s Ford

It was a season of unequalled prosperity in Devil’s Ford. The half a dozen cabins scattered along the banks of the North Fork, as if by some overflow of that capricious river, had become augmented during a week of fierce excitement by twenty or thirty others, that were huddled together on the narrow gorge of Devil’s Spur, or cast up on its steep sides. So sudden and violent had been the change of fortune, that the dwellers in the older cabins had not had time to change with it, but still kept their old habits, customs, and even their old clothes. The flour pan in which their daily bread was mixed stood on the rude table side by side with the ‘prospecting pans,’ half full of gold washed up from their morning’s work; the front windows of the newer tenements looked upon the one single thoroughfare, but the back door opened upon the uncleared wilderness, still haunted by the misshapen bulk of bear or the nightly gliding of catamount.

Found At Blazing Star

Francis Bret Harte 1836 1902 was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. His first literary efforts, including poetry and prose, appeared in The Californian, an early literary journal edited by Charles Henry Webb. In 1868 he became editor of The Overland Monthly, another new literary magazine, but this one more in tune with the pioneering spirit of excitement in California. His story, ‘The Luck of Roaring Camp, ‘ appeared in the magazine’s second edition, propelling Harte to nationwide fame. When word of Dickens’ death reached Harte in July of 1870, he immediately sent a dispatch across the bay to San Francisco to hold back the forthcoming publication of his Overland Monthly for twenty four hours, so that he could compose the poetic tribute, Dickens in Camp. This work is considered by many of Harte’s admirers as his masterpiece of verse, for its evident sincerity, the depth of feeling it displays, and the unusual quality of its poetic expression. The spirit of Dickens breathes through the poems and stories of Bret Harte just as the spirit of Bret Harte breathes through the poems and stories of Kipling.

Fascinating San Francisco

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

Her Letter, His Answer and Her Last Letter

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

An Apostle of the Tules

THIS 36 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: In The Carquinez Woods; A Blue Grass Penelope; Devil’s Ford and Other Stories, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417911492.

A Bluegrass Penelope

THIS 72 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: In The Carquinez Woods; A Blue Grass Penelope; Devil’s Ford and Other Stories, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417911492.

The Conspiracy of Mrs. Bunker

THIS 76 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Sally Dows and A Phyllis of the Sierras, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417915900.

A Drift from Redwood Camp

THIS 46 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Sally Dows and A Phyllis of the Sierras, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417915900.

Left Out on Lone Star Mountain

THIS 38 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: In The Carquinez Woods; A Blue Grass Penelope; Devil’s Ford and Other Stories, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417911492.

A Secret of Telegraph Hill

THIS 50 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: In The Carquinez Woods; A Blue Grass Penelope; Devil’s Ford and Other Stories, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417911492.

A Ship of ’49

THIS 88 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: In The Carquinez Woods; A Blue Grass Penelope; Devil’s Ford and Other Stories, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417911492.

Spanish and American Legends

THIS 70 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: The Luck Of Roaring Camp; In The Carquinez Woods And Other Stories, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1419184512.

Their Uncle from California

THIS 54 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Sally Dows and A Phyllis of the Sierras, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417915900.

The Transformation of Buckeye Camp

THIS 42 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Sally Dows and A Phyllis of the Sierras, by Bret Harte. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1417915900.

The Luck of Roaring Camp

This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR’d book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book.

Mrs. Skaggs’s Husbands

The sun was rising in the foot hills. But for an hour the black mass of Sierra eastward of Angel’s had been outlined with fire, and the conventional morning had come two hours before with the down coach from Placerville. The dry, cold, dewless California night still lingered in the long canyons and folded skirts of Table Mountain. Even on the mountain road the air was still sharp, and that urgent necessity for something to keep out the chill, which sent the barkeeper sleepily among his bottles and wineglas*ses at the station, obtained all along the road.

Tales of the Argonauts

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million books. com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: WAN LEE, THE PAGAN. AS I opened Hop Sing’s letter, there fluttered to the ground a square strip of yellow paper covered with hieroglyphics, which, at first glance, I innocently took to be the label from a pack of Chinese fire crackers. But the same envelope also contained a smaller strip of rice paper, with two Chinese characters traced in India ink, that I at once knew to be Hop Sing’s visiting card. The whole, as afterwards literally translated, ran as follows: ‘ To the stranger the gates of my house are not closed : the rice jar is on the left, and the sweetmeats on the right, as you enter. Two sayings of the Master : Hospitality is the virtue of the son and the wisdom of the ancestor. The Superior man is light hearted after the crop gathering: he makes a festival. When the stranger is in your melon patch, observe him not too closely: inattention is often the highest form of civility. Happiness, Peace, and Prosperity. HOP SlNQ.’ Admirable, certainly, as was this morality and proverbial wisdom, and although this last axiom was very characteristic of my friend Hop Sing, who was that most sombre of all humorists, a Chinese philosopher, I must confess, that, 3ven after a very free translation, I was at a loss to make any immediate application of the message. Luckily I discovered a third enclosure in the shape of a little note in English, and Hop Sing’s own commercial hand. It ran thus: ‘ The pleasure of your company is requested at No. Sacramento Street, on Friday evening at eight o’clock. A cup of tea at nine, sharp. ‘Hop Sing.’ This explained all. It meant a visit to Hop Sing’s warehouse, the opening and exhibition of some rare Chinese novelties and curios, a chat in the back office, a cup of tea of a perfection unknown beyond these sac…

Thankful Blossom

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The Story of a Mine

It was a steep trail leading over the Monterey Coast Range. Concho was very tired, Concho was very dusty, Concho was very much disgusted. To Concho’s mind there was but one relief for these insurmountable difficulties, and that lay in a leathern bottle slung over the machillas of his saddle. Concho raised the bottle to his lips, took a long draught, made a wry face, and ejaculated: ‘Carajo!’ It appeared that the bottle did not contain aguardiente, but had lately been filled in a tavern near Tres Pinos by an Irishman who sold had American whisky under that pleasing Castilian title. Nevertheless Concho had already nearly emptied the bottle, and it fell back against the saddle as yellow and flaccid as his own cheeks. Thus reinforced Concho turned to look at the valley behind him, from which he had climbed since noon. It was a sterile waste bordered here and there by arable fringes and valdas of meadow land, but in the main, dusty, dry, and forbidding.

The Twins of Table Mountain

Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. Harte moved to California in 1853, and worked there in a number of capacities as a miner, a teacher, a messenger, and a journalist. His story, ‘The Luck of Roaring Camp,’ appearing in The Overland Monthly magazine, propelled Harte to nationwide fame.

The Twins of Table Mountain is another collection of longer tales, including the title story ‘The Twins of Table Mountain‘ as well as ‘An Heiress of Red Dog,’ ‘The Great Deadwood Mystery,’ ‘A Legend of Sammtstadt,’ and ‘Views from a German Spion.’ The Twins of Table Mountain are Rand and Ruth, sharing a cabin and working a mine. They are twins, not easily told apart, and a strain on the relationship occurs because of it. Ruth has been seeing Mornie, a local girl, the ‘daughter of a shyster and a drunk.’ Mornie has mistaken Rand for Ruth, and gone on about their meetings and their plans. Ruth is fond of Mornie, but Rand disapproves. Will brotherhood or love triumph?

Flip, and Other Stories

Four weeks of this change, with broken spaces of sunlight and intense blue aerial islands, and then a storm set in. All day the summit pines and redwoods rocked in the blast. At times the onset of the rain seemed to be held back by the fury of the gale, or was visibly seen in sharp waves on the hillside. Unknown and concealed watercourses suddenly overflowed the trails, pools became lakes and brooks rivers. Hidden from the storm, the sylvan silence of sheltered valleys was broken by the impetuous rush of waters; even the tiny streamlet that traversed Flip’s retreat in the Gin and Ginger Woods became a cascade.

In the Carquinez Woods

In the Carquinez Woods AND OTHER TALES CONTENTS IN THE CARQUINEWZ OODS…

. . PAO 1 B A BLUE GRASS PENELOPE…

. . 126 LEFT O UT ON LONES TAHM OUNTAIN…
192 A SHIP OF 49…


. . 223 AN APOSTLE O F THE TULES . . 306 DEVILS FORD…


. . 335 A SECRET O F TELEGRAPH ILL…

. 417 LIST ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE THE WOMAN…
STOOD BEFORE HIM See page 6 Frontispiece…


. Alice Barber Stephens VIGNETT O E N ENGRAVED TITLE PAGE . . Charles H. Woodbury SHE CAUGHT HIM BY THE KNEES…
. Alice Barber Stephens 120 HE LOOKED CUBIOUSLY AT HIS REFLECTION E. Boyd Smith…
204 BREAK F OR THE E . . S…

E. Boyd Smith…
322 DEVILS FORD…


. . W. L. Taylor…
392 STORI S OF CALIFORNIA AND THE FRONTIER. I1 In the Carquinez Woods CHAPTER I THE sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shafts of sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in unfathomable depths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the enormous trunks of the redwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast columns, and the dull red of their cast off bark which matted the echoless aisles, still seemed to hold a faint glow. of the dying day. But even this soon passed. Light and color fled upwards. The dark, interlaced treetops, that had all . day made an impenetrable shade, broke into fire here and there their lost spires glittered, faded, and went utterly out. A weird twilight that did not come from an outer world, but seemed born of the wood itself, slowly filled and possessed the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like columns of upward smoke. The few fallen trees stretched their huge length into obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles. The strange breath that filled these mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture a dry, fragrant dust arose from the noiseless fbot that trod their bark strewn floor the aisles might have been tombs the fallen trees, enormous mummies the silence, the solitude of the forgotten past. . And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous gasps. I t was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy feline or canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more powerful organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or as if a fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate. At times this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as misshapenly, as the phantom of a nightmare. Now it was a square object moving sideways, endways, with neither head nor tail and scarcely visible feet then an arched bulk rolling against the trunks of the trees and recoiling again, or an upright cylindrical mass, but always oscillating and unsteady, and striking the trees on either hand. The frequent occurrence of the movement suggested the figures of some weird rhythmic dance to music heard by the shape alone. Suddenly it either be came motionless or faded away. There was the frightened neighing of a horse, the sudden jingling of spurs, a shout and outcry, and the swift apparition of three dancing torches in one of the dark aisles but so intense was the obscurity that they shed no light on surrounding objects, and seemed to advance at their own volition without human guidance, until they disappeared suddenly behind the interposing bulk of one of the largest trees. Beyond its eighty feet of circumference the light could not reach, and the gloom remained inscrutable. But the voices and jingling spurs were heard distinctly. Blast the mare She S shied off that cursed trail again…

Maruja

Morning was breaking on the high road to San Jose. The long lines of dusty, level track were beginning to extend their vanishing point in the growing light; on either side the awakening fields of wheat and oats were stretching out and broadening to the sky. In the east and south the stars were receding before the coming day; in the west a few still glimmered, caught among the bosky hills of the canada del Raimundo, where night seemed to linger. Thither some obscure, low flying birds were slowly winging; thither a gray coyote, overtaken by the morning, was awkwardly limping. And thither a tramping wayfarer turned, plowing through the dust of the highway still unslaked by the dewless night, to climb the fence and likewise seek the distant cover. For some moments man and beast kept an equal pace and gait with a strange similarity of appearance and expression; the coyote bearing that resemblance to his more civilized and harmless congener, the dog, which the tramp bore to the ordinary pedestrians, but both exhibiting the same character istics of lazy vagabondage and semi lawlessness; the coyote’s slouching amble and uneasy stealthiness being repeated in the tramp’s shuffling step and sidelong glances.

The Crusade of the Excelsior

It was the 4th of August, 1854, off Cape Corrientes. Morning was breaking over a heavy sea, and the closely reefed topsails of a barque that ran before it bearing down upon the faint outline of the Mexican coast. Already the white peak of Colima showed, ghost like, in the east; already the long sweep of the Pacific was gathering strength and volume as it swept uninterruptedly into the opening Gulf of California. As the cold light increased, it could be seen that the vessel showed evidence of a long voyage and stress of weather. She had lost one of her spars, and her starboard davits rolled emptily. Nevertheless, her rigging was taut and ship shape, and her decks scrupulously clean. Indeed, in that uncertain light, the only moving figure besides the two motionless shadows at the wheel was engaged in scrubbing the quarter deck which, with its grated settees and stacked camp chairs, seemed to indicate the presence of cabin passengers.

Tales, Poems and Sketches

1908. Illustrated. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California, earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books, The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’liss, helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. This volume contains some of his most famous works including: The Luck of Roaring Camp; The Outcasts of Poker Flat; M’liss; Dickens in Camp; Brown of Calaveras; Baby Sylvester; and many more. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Heritage of Dedlow Marsh

Bret Harte grew up in California, and based many of his stories on the pioneering spirit that was ever present in the early days of Californian history. He was very well known in his time, and many an editor requested his short stories for their magazines.

In ‘The Heritage of Dedlow Marsh,’ siblings Maggie and Jim Culpepper live in a modest home in Dedlow Marsh. Not far from their home is a Fort in which government soldiers are stationed. One evening, a deserter from the Fort approaches Maggie late in the evening asking for supplies. Reluctantly, she gives the man some of her brother’s clothes and a bit of food. She doesn’t tell her brother because she’s afraid of his wrath. But when the deserter is caught, Jim tells them that the deserter stole his clothes. Maggie must now reveal her secret or allow this man to receive a fate he does not deserve.

Also included in this volume are ‘A Knight Errant of the Foothills,’ ‘A Secret of Telegraph Hill,’ and ‘Captain Jim’s Friend’ the four stories taken together are very representative of Hart’s body of work.

A Waif of the Plains

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A Ward of the Golden Gate

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The collection ?Miscellaneous Papers? is a testament to Dicken?s clear cut style of writing. He has addressed some serious political issues and has shared facts and figures in these articles. These multifarious essays cover different aspects of the British politics and present the author?s much untainted ideas.

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A First Family of Tasajara

1891. Illustrated. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books, The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’liss, helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. The book begins: It blows, said Joe Wingate. As if to accent the words of the speaker a heavy gust of wind at that moment shook the long light wooden structure which served as the general store of Sidon settlement, in Contra Costa. Even after it had passed a prolonged whistle came through the keyhole, sides, and openings of the closed glass front doors, that served equally for windows, and filled the canvas ceiling which hid the roof above like a bellying sail. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

A Sappho of Green Springs

Bret Harte was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. Harte moved to California in 1853, and worked there in a number of capacities as a miner, a teacher, a messenger, and a journalist. His story, ‘The Luck of Roaring Camp,’ appearing in The Overland Monthly magazine, propelled Harte to nationwide fame. A Sappho of Green Springs is a collection of four longer tales, including ‘Sappho,’ the title story, ‘The Chatelaine of Burnt Ridge,’ ‘Through the Santa Clara Wheat,’ and ‘A Maecenas of the Pacific Slope.’ ‘A Sappho of Green Springs‘ features a recurring Harte character, the gambler Jack Hamlin. A caller has come to the offices of the Excelsior magazine, seeking the identity of a writer. He’s a lumberman from Mendocino, struck by the truth of a poem submitted by a writer known as White Violet, and hopes to meet her. The editor explains that he cannot give out identities, but will write to White Violet if desired, and if the author consents, provide an address. Jack reads the poem, agrees on its merits, and makes a bet with the editor that he can find the writer. Jack is a gambler, but this is a different sort of bet.

Colonel Starbottle’s Client

Society has forgiven Jo Corbin for killing a man, but can he forgive himself? Will the postmistress lose all in a bid to help a friend escape justice? Will the new teaching assistant’s unorthodox ways tame the unruly pioneer children? These are just three of the nine wonderful short stories from Bret Harte, set in wild and woolly nineteenth century California. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, and M’liss helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. This book includes the following classic tales: ‘Colonel Starbottle’s Client‘ ‘The Postmistress of Laurel Run’ ‘A Night at Hays’ ‘Johnson’s Old Woman’ ‘The New Assistant at Pine Clearing School’ ‘In a Pioneer Restaurant’ ‘A Treasure of the Galleon’ ‘Out of a Pioneer’s Trunk’ ‘The Ghosts of Stukeley Castle’

Sally Dows

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The Bell-Ringer of Angel’s

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A Protegee of Jack Hamlin’s

1894. Illustrated. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California, earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books, The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’liss, helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. This selection of stories includes: A Protegee of Jack Hamlin’s; An Ingenue of the Sierras; The Reformation of James Reddy; The Heir of the McHulishes; An Episode of West Woodlands; and The Home Coming of Jim Wilkes. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

In a Hollow of the Hills

It was very dark, and the wind was increasing. The last gust had been preceded by an ominous roaring down the whole mountain side, which continued for some time after the trees in the little valley had lapsed into silence. The air was filled with a faint, cool, sodden odor, as of stirred forest depths. In those intervals of silence the darkness seemed to increase in proportion and grow almost palpable. Yet out of this sightless and soundless void now came the tinkle of a spur’s rowels, the dry crackling of saddle leathers, and the muffled plunge of a hoof in the thick carpet of dust and desiccated leaves. Then a voice, which in spite of its matter of fact reality the obscurity lent a certain mystery to, said: ‘I can’t make out anything! Where the devil have we got to, anyway? It’s as black as Tophet, here ahead!’ ‘Strike a light and make a flare with something,’ returned a second voice. ‘Look where you’re shoving to now keep your horse off, will ye.’

Barker’s Luck

CONTENTS. IBARKERS LTICK . 1 YELLOW DOG…

. 44 JA A MOTHER OF FIVE 63 IBULGERS REPUTATION 80 IX THE TULES 104 IA CONVERT OF THE MISSION…
. 141 Tgg INDISCIIETIO ov ELSBKTH…
. 182 . THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ…
. 216 BARKERS LUCK. to A BIRD twittered The morning sun shining through the open window was ap parently more potent than the cool moun tain air, which had only caused the sleeper to curl a little more tightly in his blankets. Barkers eyes opened instantly upon the light and the bird on the window ledge. Like all healthy young animals he would have tried to sleep again, but with his mo mentary consciousness came the recollection that it was his turn to cook the breakfast that morning, and he regretfully rolled out 1 of his bunk to the floor. Without stopping to dress he opened the door and stepped outside, secure in the knowledge that he was overlooked only by the Sierras, and plunged his head and shoulders in the bucket of cold water that stood by the door. Then he be gan to clothe himself, partly in the cabin and . partly in the open air, with a lapse between the putting on of his trousers and coat which he employed in bringing in wood. Raking together the few embers on the adobe hearth, not without a prudent regard to the rattle snake which had once been detected in haunting the warm ashes, he began to pre pare breakfast. By this time the other sleepers, his partners Stacy and Demorest, young men of about his own age, were awake, alert, and lazily critical of his pro gress. I dont care about my quail on toast being underdone for breakfast, said Stacy, with a yawn and you need nt serve with red wine. I m not feeling very peckish this morning. And I reckon you can knock off the fried oysters after the Spanish mackerel for me said Demorest gravely. The fact is, that last bottle of Veuve Clicquot we had for supper was nt as dry as I am this morn ing. Accustomed to these regular Barmecide suggestions, Barker made no direct reply. Presently, looking up from the fire, he said, There’s no more saleratus, so you must nt blame me if the biscuit is extra heavy. told you we had none when you went to the grocery yesterday. And I told you we had nt a red cent to buy any with, said Stacy, who was also treasurer. Put these two negatives to gether and you make the affirmative saleratus. Mix freely and bake in a hot oven. Nevertheless, after a toilette as primitive as Barkers they sat down to what he had prepared, with the keen appetite begotten of the mountain air and the regretful fasti diousness born of the recollection of better things. Jerked beef, frizzled with salt pork in a frying pan, boiled potatoes, biscuit, and coffee composed the repast. The bis cuits, however, proving remarkably heavy after the first mouthful, were used as mis siles, thrown through the open door at an empty bottle, which had previously served as a mark for revolver practice, and a few moments later pipes were lit to counteract the effects of the meal and take the taste out of their mouths. Suddenly they heard the sound of horses hoos, saw the quick passage of a rider in the open space before the cabin, and felt the smart impact upon the table of some small object thrown by . him…

The Three Partners

1897. Illustrated. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California, earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books, The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’liss, helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. An excerpt from the book reads: There was something in the speaker’s tone which seemed to touch a common chord in their natures, and this was voiced by Barker with sudden and almost pathetic earnestness. I tell you what, boys, we ought to swear here tonight to always stand by each other. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Stories in Light and Shadow

The American consul for Schlachtstadt had just turned out of the broad Konig’s Allee into the little square that held his consulate. Its residences always seemed to him to wear that singularly uninhabited air peculiar to a street scene in a theatre. The facades, with their stiff, striped wooden awnings over the windows, were of the regularity, color, and pattern only seen on the stage, and conversation carried on in the street below always seemed to be invested with that perfect confidence and security which surrounds the actor in his painted desert of urban perspective. Yet it was a peaceful change to the other byways and highways of Schlachtstadt which were always filled with an equally unreal and mechanical soldiery, who appeared to be daily taken out of their boxes of ‘caserne’ or ‘depot’ and loosely scattered all over the pretty linden haunted German town. There were soldiers standing on street corners; soldiers staring woodenly into shop windows; soldiers halted suddenly into stone, like lizards, at the approach of Offiziere; Offiziere lounging stiffly four abreast, sweeping the pavement with their trailing sabres all at one angle. There were cavalcades of red hussars, cavalcades of blue hussars, cavalcades of Uhlans, with glittering lances and pennons with or without a band formally parading; there were straggling ‘fatigues’ or ‘details’ coming round the corners;

Tales of Trail and Town

It must be admitted that the civilizing processes of Rough and Ready were not marked by any of the ameliorating conditions of other improved camps. After the discovery of the famous ‘Eureka’ lead, there was the usual influx of gamblers and saloon keepers; but that was accepted as a matter of course. But it was thought hard that, after a church was built and a new school erected, it should suddenly be found necessary to have doors that locked, instead of standing shamelessly open to the criticism and temptation of wayfarers, or that portable property could no longer be left out at night in the old fond reliance on universal brotherhood. The habit of borrowing was stopped with the introduction of more money into the camp, and the establishment of rates of interest; the poorer people either took what they wanted, or as indiscreetly bought on credit. There were better clothes to be seen in its one long straggling street, but those who wore them generally lacked the grim virtue of the old pioneers, and the fairer faces that were to be seen were generally rouged. There was a year or two of this kind of mutation, in which the youthful barbarism of Rough and Ready might have been said to struggle with adult civilized wickedness, and then the name itself disappeared.

Miggles

This book is a facsimile reprint and may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages.

Mr. Jack Hamlin’s Mediation

MR. JACK HAMLINS MEDIATION 1899 AT nightfall it began to rain. The wind arose too, and also began to buffet a small, struggling, nondescript fibme, creeping along the trail over the rocky upland meadow to wards Rylandss rancho. At times its head was hidden in what appeared to be wings thrown upward from its shoulders at times its broad brimmed hat was cocked jauntily on one side, and again the brim was fixed over the face like a visor. At one moment a drifting misshpen mass of drapery, at the next its vague garments, beaten back hard against the figure, revealed outlines far too delicate for that rude enwrapping. For it was Mrs. Rylands herself, in her husbands hat and her Gred mans old blue army overcoat, returning from the post office two miles away. The wind continued its aggres sion until she reached the front door of her newly plastered farmhouse, and then a heavier blast shook the pines above the low pitched, shingled roof, and sent it shower of arrowy drops after her like a Parthian parting, as she entered. She threw aside the overcoat and hat, and somewhat inconsistently entered the sitting room, to walk to the window and look back upon the path she had just trav ersed. The wind and the rain swept down a slope, half meadow, half clearing, a mile away, to a fringe of sycamores. A mile further lay the stage road, where, three hours later, her husband would alight on his return from Sacramento. It would be a long wet walk for Joshua Rylands, as their only horse had been borrowed by a neigh bof . In that fading light Mrs. Rylandss oval cheek was shining still from the raindrops, but there was something in the expression of her worried face that might have as readily suggested tears. She was strikingly hand some, yet quite as incongruous an ornament to her surroundings as she had been to her outer wrappings a moment ago, Even the clothes she now stood in hinted an inadapti bility to the weather the house the position she occupied in it. A figured silk dress, spoiled rather than overworn, was still of a quality inconsistent with her evident habits, and the lace edged petticoat that peeped beneath it was draggled with mud and unaccustomed usage. Her glossy black hair, which had been tossed into curls in some foreign fashion, was now wind blown into a burlesque of it. This incongruity was still further accented by the appearance of the room she had entered. It was coldly and severely furnished, making the chill of the yet damp white plaster unpleasantly obvious. A black harmonium organ stood in one corner, set out with black and white hymn books a trestle like table contained a large Bible half a dozen black, horsehair cushioned chairs stood, geometrically dis tant, against the walls, from which hung four engravings of Paradise Lost in black mourning frames some dried ferns and autumn leaves stood in a vase on the mantel piece, as if the chill of the room had pre maturely blighted them. The coldly glitter ing grate below was also decorated with withered sprays, as if an attempt b d been made to burn them, but was frustrated through damp. Suddenly recalled to a sense of her wet boots and the new carpet, she hurriedly turned away, crossed the hall ,into the dining room, and thence passed into the kitchen. The hired girl, a large boned Missourian, a daughter of a neighboring woodman, was peeling potatoes at the table. Mrs. Rylands drew a chair before the kitchen stove, and put her wet feet on the hob. I U bet a cooky, Mess Rylands, you ve done forgot the vanillar, said the girl, with a certain domestic and confidential familiarity. Mrs…

Under the Redwoods

As night crept up from the valley that stormy afternoon, Sawyer’s Ledge was at first quite blotted out by wind and rain, but presently reappeared in little nebulous star like points along the mountain side, as the straggling cabins of the settlement were one by one lit up by the miners returning from tunnel and claim. These stars were of varying brilliancy that evening, two notably so one that eventually resolved itself into a many candled illumination of a cabin of evident festivity; the other into a glimmering taper in the window of a silent one. They might have represented the extreme muta tions of fortune in the settlement that night: the celebration of a strike by Robert Falloner, a lucky miner; and the sick bed of Dick Lasham, an unlucky one. The latter was, however, not quite alone. He was ministered to by Daddy Folsom, a weak but emotional and aggressively hopeful neighbor, who was sitting beside the wooden bunk whereon the invalid lay. Yet there was something perfunc tory in his attitude: his eyes were continually straying to the window, whence the illuminated Falloner festivities could be seen between the trees, and his ears were more intent on the songs and laughter that came faintly from the distance than on the feverish breathing and unintelligible moans of the sufferer.

A Niece of Snapshot Harry’s

1900. Bret Harte’s witty, sometimes heart rending tales of frontier California earned him acclaim during the 1860s as the new prophet of American letters. His books, The Luck of Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat and M’liss, helped establish the foundations of western American fiction. Contents: A Niece of Snapshot Harry’s; What Happened at the Fonda; Mr. Bilson’s Housekeeper; Jimmy’s Big Brother from California; The Youngest Miss Piper; A Widow of the Santa Ana Valley; The Mermaid of Lighthouse Point; Three Vagabonds of Trinidad; A Mercury of the Foot Hills; Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff; The Landlord of the Big Flume Hotel; The Reincarnation of Smith; Lanty Foster’s Mistake; An Ali Baba of the Sierras; and The Four Guardians of Lagrange. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.

Trent’s Trust

Trent’s Trust By Bret Harte Randolph Trent stepped from the Stockton boat on the San Francisco wharf, penniless, friendless, and unknown. Hunger might have been added to his trials, for, having paid his last coin in passage money, he had been a day and a half without food. Yet he knew it only by an occasional lapse into weakness as much mental as physical. Nevertheless, he was first on the gangplank to land, and hurried feverishly ashore, in that vague desire for action and change of scene common to such irritation; yet after mixing for a few moments with the departing passengers, each selfishly hurrying to some rendezvous of rest or business, he insensibly drew apart from them, with the instinct of a vagabond and outcast. Although he was conscious that he was neither, but merely an unsuccessful miner suddenly reduced to the point of soliciting work or alms of any kind, he took advantage of the first crossing to plunge into a side street, with a vague sense of hiding his shame…


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Tennessee’s Partner

Bret Harte is best known for his stories about pioneering life in California. Harte moved to California in 1853 where he worked as a miner, journalist, teacher and messenger. His experiences in the mining camps gave him the inspiration for this tale, which was loosely based on a true story about a miner.

Selected Stories of Bret Harte

Selected Stories of Bret Harte is a book written by Bret Harte. It is widely considered to be one of the top 100 greatest books of all time. This great novel will surely attract a whole new generation of readers. For many, Selected Stories of Bret Harte is required reading for various courses and curriculums. And for others who simply enjoy reading timeless pieces of classic literature, this gem by Bret Harte is highly recommended. Published by Quill Pen Classics and beautifully produced, Selected Stories of Bret Harte would make an ideal gift and it should be a part of everyone’s personal library.

How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s Bar

CONTENTS Mrs. Skaggs’s Husbands How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s Bar The Princess Bob and her Friends The Iliad of Sandy Bar Mr. Thompson’s Prodigal The Romance of Madro o Hollow The Poet of Sierra Flat The Christmas Gift that came to Rupert

The Outcasts of Poker Flat

Upon waking from their overnight camp in the mountains, four exiles from Poker Flat and a young couple traveling to the town face a snowstorm with limited provisions.

The Lost Galleon

The Lost Galleon And Other Tales By Bret Harte

Illiad of Sandy Bar

This amusing and moving collection also includes ‘How Santa Claus Came to Simpson’s Bar’, ‘An Heiress of Red Dog’, ‘Uncle Jim and Uncle Billy’, ‘The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin’ and ‘Chu Chu’. Three 90 minute cassettes.

Sketches, Stories and Bohemian Papers

SKETCHES The Luck of Roaring Camp The Outcasts of Poker Flat Miggles Tennessee’s Partner The Idyl of Red Gulch Brown of Calaveras High Water Mark A Lonely Ride The Man of No Account STORIES Mliss The Right Eye of the Commander Notes by Flood and Field BOHEMIAN PAPERS Mission Dolores John Chinaman From a Back Window Boonder

Urban Sketches

Bret Harte loved the West and its people. Bret Harte was Albany, New York, in 1839. His father was a professor of Greek at Albany College, and died during the boyhood of his son. Bret Harte, after a common school education, went with his mother to California at the age of seventeen. There he became a jack of all trades, but, contrary to the old saying, he became master of one short story writing. At various times he was a teacher, miner, printer, express messenger, secretary of the San Francisco Mint, and editor. The stir of life in San Francisco stimulated Bret Harte in the years following the gold rush of 1849. Here he found human nature in the raw. There was no veneer. The community had not yet turned aside from digging and panning, winning and losing, long enough to look to its lawless community affairs. It is as a story teller that Bret Harte painted the most thrilling pictures of that time. Bret Harte wrote a great deal. Forty four volumes were published by him between 1867 and 1898. He was professor in the University of California for one year. He moved to New York in 1871 and lived there until 1878. During the next two years he was United States Consul at Crefeld, Germany, and from 1880 to 1885 Consul at Glasgow. Thereafter he lived in London, engaged in literary work. Bret Harte died at Camberley, England, on May 5, 1902.

New Burlesques

Francis Bret Harte 1836 1902 was a prolific American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. The spirit of Dickens breathes through the poems and stories of Bret Harte just as the spirit of Bret Harte breathes through the poems and stories of Kipling.

Frontier Stories

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www. million books. com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: In the Carquinez CHAPTER I. The sun was going down on the Carquinez Woods. The few shafts of sunlight that had pierced their pillared gloom were lost in unfathomable depths, or splintered their ineffectual lances on the enormous trunks of the redwoods. For a time the dull red of their vast columns, and the dull red of their cast off bark which matted the echoless aisles, still seemed to hold a faint glow of the dying day. But even this soon passed. Light and color fled upwards. The dark, interlaced tree tops, that had all day made an impenetrable shade, broke into fire here and there ; their lost spires glittered, faded, and went utterly out. A weird twilight that did not come from an outer world, but seemed born of the wood itself, slowly filled and possessed the aisles. The straight, tall, colossal trunks rose dimly like columns of upward smoke. The few fallen trees stretched their huge length into obscurity, and seemed to lie on shadowy trestles. The strange breath that filled these mysterious vaults had neither coldness nor moisture; a dry, fragrant dust arose from the noiseless foot that trod their bark strewn floor; the aisles might have been tombs, the fallen trees, enormous mummies ; the silence, the solitude of the forgotten past. And yet this silence was presently broken by a recurring sound like breathing, interrupted occasionally by inarticulate and stertorous gasps. It was not the quick, panting, listening breath of some stealthy feline or canine animal, but indicated a larger, slower, and more powerful organization, whose progress was less watchful and guarded, or as if a fragment of one of the fallen monsters had become animate. At times this life seemed to take visible form, but as vaguely, as misshapenly, as the phantom of a nightmare. Now it was a squa…

Old West in the Old World

The two plays in this collection, The Luck of Roaring Camp, by Bret Harte, and The Prince of Timbuctoo, by Sam Davis, were written by Old West authors as the nineteenth century transitioned into the twentieth. Both plays are original treatments of Americans in the Old World France and Africa, respectively. Hitherto, both plays were lost never published, and forgotten. At first glance, the plays appear to be very different. Harte greatly revised his famous short story to turn its title character into an attractive ing nue sent by her mining camp foster parents to acquire an education and polish in France. There she and the son of an aristocratic family fall in love and confront complications of class and money. In Davis’s play, a comic opera, three Americans come to Timbuctoo to exploit it. But two of them decide to support the young prince of the kingdom who is trying to gain his rightful throne and marry the girl of his choice. Despite malicious intrigues, both works end happily, reflecting their authors’ Old West beliefs in a society where character takes precedence over birth. Both plays besides being valuable additions to the literature of the period are intrinsically entertaining.

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