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Snowbound at Eagle's
Novella.
Unknown Binding
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About the author
Bret Harte
3,146 books63 followersPeople note American writer Francis Bret Harte for
The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches
(1870), his best-known collection of his stories about California mining towns.
People best remember this poet for his short-story fiction, featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the Gold Rush. In a career, spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern United States to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but people most often reprinted, adapted, and admired his tales of the Gold Rush.
Parents named him after Francis Brett, his great-grandfather. Bernard Hart, paternal grandfather of Francis and an Orthodox Jewish immigrant, flourished as a merchant and founded the New York stock exchange. Henry, father of the young Francis, changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte. Later, Francis preferred that people know his middle name, which he spelled Bret with only one t.
An avid reader as a boy, Harte at 11 years of age published his first work, a satirical poem, titled "Autumn Musings", now lost. Rather than attracting praise, the poem garnered ridicule from his family. As an adult, he recalled to a friend, "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse". His formal schooling ended at 13 years of age in 1849.
People best remember this poet for his short-story fiction, featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the Gold Rush. In a career, spanning more than four decades, he wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials, and magazine sketches in addition to fiction. As he moved from California to the eastern United States to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but people most often reprinted, adapted, and admired his tales of the Gold Rush.
Parents named him after Francis Brett, his great-grandfather. Bernard Hart, paternal grandfather of Francis and an Orthodox Jewish immigrant, flourished as a merchant and founded the New York stock exchange. Henry, father of the young Francis, changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte. Later, Francis preferred that people know his middle name, which he spelled Bret with only one t.
An avid reader as a boy, Harte at 11 years of age published his first work, a satirical poem, titled "Autumn Musings", now lost. Rather than attracting praise, the poem garnered ridicule from his family. As an adult, he recalled to a friend, "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse". His formal schooling ended at 13 years of age in 1849.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
June 13, 2013
Nice story set in a vanished world of the West, with Harte's peculiarly descriptive style and mastery of dialect. I particularly enjoy his portrayal of women, who, however unlike modern women in social freedoms, nevertheless display courage and, surprisingly, power, in their spheres of influence. There is more respect for women here than you often see in modern manhood.
August 4, 2017
"I wonder," said Mrs. Hale, following them with softly appreciative eyes, "if women are capable of as disinterested friendship as men ? I never saw anything like the devotion of these two creatures. Look! if Mr. Falkner hasn't got his arm round Mr. Lee's waist, and Lee, with his own arm over Falkner's neck, is looking up in his eyes. I declare, Kate, it almost seems an indiscretion to look at them."
December 16, 2023
First
This is the first piece of fiction I've read by Bret Hare. It is an easy read, an interesting premise, told in an economic fashion. No flower prose descriptions.
I have now read work by both men who's names make up the name of the Sierra Nevada town of Twain Harte, California. A place that holds fond childhood memories!
This is the first piece of fiction I've read by Bret Hare. It is an easy read, an interesting premise, told in an economic fashion. No flower prose descriptions.
I have now read work by both men who's names make up the name of the Sierra Nevada town of Twain Harte, California. A place that holds fond childhood memories!
January 20, 2024
2.5-ish stars. I have absolutely no idea what the moral of this story was supposed to be, but the descriptions of the landscape and weather and the nitty-gritty of traveling through them on horseback were nice.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews