Bret Harte
Bret Harte's Books(11)
Tales of Trail and Town
Literature Francis Bret Harte was born on August 25, 1836 in Albany New York. As a young boy Harte developed an early love of books and reading. He first published at the tender age of 11; a satirical poem titled "Autumn Musings." Expecting praise he encountered anything but and was later to write "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse." By age 13 his formal education was at an end and four years later, in 1853, the family moved to California. Here the young man worked in a variety of capacities; miner, teacher, messenger, and journalist. But it was also here on the West coast that he found the stories and inspiration for the works that would endure his fame across the literary world. He championed the early writings of Mark Twain. He was instrumental in propelling the short story genre forward and brought tales of the Old West and the Gold Rush to a greater audience. At the height of his fame we would entertain staggering monetary offers to write for monthly magazines. His talents extended to poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches. As he moved location initially further east to New York and then through Consular appointments to Europe and finally to settle in England his audience diminished but he continued to experiment, to write and to publish. Bret Harte died of throat cancer on May 5th 1902 and is buried in St Peter's Church in Frimley, Surrey, England. Here we publish another very fine collection of his short stories; "Tales of Trail and Town". Snow-Bound at Eagle's
Adventure Classic western novel. According to Wikipedia: "Bret Harte (August 25, 1836[2] – May 6, 1902) was an American author and poet, best remembered for his accounts of pioneering life in California. He was born in Albany, New York. ... He moved to California in 1853, later working there in a number of capacities, including miner, teacher, messenger, and journalist. He spent part of his life in the northern California coast town now known as Arcata, then just a mining camp on Humboldt Bay. 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... Determined to pursue his literary career, in 1871 he and his family traveled back East, to New York and eventually to Boston, where he contracted with the publisher of The Atlantic Monthly for an annual salary of $10,000, "an unprecedented sum at the time." His popularity waned, however, and by the end of 1872 he was without a publishing contract and increasingly desperate. He spent the next few years struggling to publish new work (or republish old), delivering lectures about the gold rush, and even selling an advertising jingle to a soap company. In 1878 Harte was appointed to the position of United States Consul in the town of Krefeld, Germany and then to Glasgow in 1880. In 1885 he settled in London. During the thirty years he spent in Europe, he never abandoned writing, and maintained a prodigious output of stories that retained the freshness of his earlier work. He died in England in 1902 of throat cancer and is buried at Frimley." A Waif of the Plains
Literature TRILOGY - Three westerns by American writer Bret Harte are in this Kindle ebook: A Waif of the Plains, Gabriel Conroy and From Sand Hill to Pine
A Waif of the Plains
A story of "The Great Plains" as they seemed to two children from an emigrant wagon, above the swaying heads of toiling oxen, in the summer of 1852.
Gabriel Conroy (1875)
The first representative "California" novel. It is the era of the Gold Rush and men from all over the world are rushing west to strike it rich. Sadly, many find only misfortune. As the book begins, Gabriel Conroy, one of Captain Conroy's party of emigrants, is lost in the snow, camped up in a cañón, out of provisions and starving.
From Sandhill to Pine (1900)
A collection of six western stories.
About the Author
American author Bret Harte (1836-1902), born in Albany, New York, was an American novelist, short story writer and poet who wrote about miners, gamblers, outlaws and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. He moved to California in 1853, working alternately as a miner, teacher, messenger, and journalist. 
