A Millionaire of Rough-and-Ready

About Bret Harte

Bret Harte was born in Albany, New York, in 1836 and was raised in New York City. He had no formal education, but he inherited a love for books. In 1857, Harte moved to California and eventually wrote for the San Franciscan Golden Era paper. There he published his first condensed novels, which were brilliant parodies of the works of well-known authors, such as Dickens and Cooper. Later, he became clerk in the U.S. branch mint. This job gave Harte time to also work for the Overland Monthly, where he published his world-famous "Luck of the Roaring Camp" and commissioned Mark Twain to write weekly articles.

In 1871, Harte was hired by the Atlantic Monthly for $10,000 to write twelve stories a year, which was the highest figure paid to an American writer at the time. He moved to New England after resigning a professorship at the University of California. There he was welcomed as an equal by such writers as Longfellow and Holmes, and he received continued praise for his works. However, laden with personal and family difficulties, his work suffered. In 1878, after an unsuccessful attempt on the lecture circuit, Harte accepted consulships in Germany and, later, Scotland. In 1885, he retired to London, where he died in 1902.