The Outcasts of Poker Flat

Francis Bret Harte was born in 1836 in Albany, New York. With only four or five years of formal schooling, he satiated his voracious appetite for reading by consuming the books his professor father kept around the house. Harte supposedly read Shakespeare at six years old, as well as the prominent British novelists, such as Charles Dickens. He also attempted writing in his youth, yet “[h]e was a dreaming, mooning lad, not of the stuff that makes young prospectors” (Harte, Bret. “Introduction.” The Works of Bret Harte, edited by Ben Ray Redman, Black’s Readers Service Company, 1932, p. x).

After his father’s death and his mother’s remarriage, the 18-year-old Harte moved west in 1854, as mining towns boomed during the California Gold Rush. Critics acknowledge that while Harte possessed a genuine writing talent, had it not been for his experience on the Western frontier, he may not have achieved popularity. The characters and personalities he encountered heavily influenced the setting, characterizations, mood, and dialect in his oeuvre. While in San Francisco, Harte’s occupations included miner, teacher, stagecoach shotgun, and finally writer. Becoming a writer enabled him to become the first editor of The Overland Monthly in 1868, a magazine that flourished under his leadership.