Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Short Stories

In 1870 the young San Francisco-based writer and editor Bret Harte (1836-1902) first compiled a single-volume edition of his rousing stories of life in the Wild West. Entitled <i>The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches </i> the book propelled him almost overnight from local celebrity to American literary lion. Four of the most famous of those tales are included in this collection: the title story The Outcasts of Poker Flat Tennessee's Partner and M'liss.<br>Additional selections include A Protégée of Jack Hamlin and An Ingénue of the Sierras both written later in Harte's life and featuring lively casts of colorful characters in settings ranging from a stagecoach to a Sacramento River steamer. They display the author's enthralling storytelling style at full strength ― crisply observant rich in ironic humor and offering an engaging mix of sentiment and wit. Harte's style exercised a deep influence on the American short story genre and set a future course for writers of Western fiction including Owen Wister and Zane Grey.<br>