Bret Harte is a fondly remembered western writer who spent only eighteen of his sixty-six years in the American west -- in fact, he went on, in 1878, to get work as an American consul in Germany, and as far as we can tell, never came back to the United States. He died in 1902, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's Church, in Frimley, Surrey, England. Even so, the American west was in his heart, and that was what he wrote about -- here, in Tales of Trail and Town, including stories like "The Ancestors of Peter Atherly," "Two Americans," "The Judgment of Bolinas Plain," "The Strange Experience of Alkali Dick," "A Night on the Divide," "The Youngest Prospector in Calaveras," and "A Tale of Three Truants." Harte was a wonderful writer; this is a volume you won't want to miss.

Author Biography

Francis Bret Harte (1836 - 1902) was an American short story writer and poet, best remembered for his short fiction featuring miners, gamblers and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush. In a career spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, fiction, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories but his Gold Rush tales have been most often reprinted, adapted and admired.