The Project Gutenberg EBook of Selected Stories, by Bret Harte

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Title: Selected Stories

Author: Bret Harte

Release Date: May 3, 2006 [EBook #1312]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SELECTED STORIES ***

Produced by Donald Lainson

SELECTED STORIES OF BRET HARTE

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

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

MLISS

THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER

NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD

AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN

BARKER'S LUCK

A YELLOW DOG

A MOTHER OF FIVE

BULGER'S REPUTATION

IN THE TULES

A CONVERT OF THE MISSION

THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH

THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ

INTRODUCTION

The life of Bret Harte divides itself, without adventitious forcing,
into four quite distinct parts. First, we have the precocious boyhood,
with its eager response to the intellectual stimulation of cultured
parents; young Bret Harte assimilated Greek with amazing facility;
devoured voraciously the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Irving,
Froissart, Cervantes, Fielding; and, with creditable success, attempted
various forms of composition. Then, compelled by economic necessity, he
left school at thirteen, and for three years worked first in a lawyer's
office, and then in a merchant's counting house.

The second period, that of his migration to California, includes all
that is permanently valuable of Harte's literary output. Arriving in
California in 1854, he was, successively, a school-teacher, drug-store
clerk, express messenger, typesetter, and itinerant journalist. He
worked for a while on the NORTHERN CALIFORNIA (from which he was
dismissed for objecting editorially to the contemporary California sport
of murdering Indians), then on the GOLDEN ERA, 1857, where he achieved
his first moderate acclaim. In this latter year he married Anne Griswold
of New York. In 1864 he was given the secretaryship of the California
mint, a virtual sinecure, and he was enabled do a great deal of writing.
The first volume of his p