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Bret Harte

Bret Harte. 1836 -1902. Childhood. Born in Albany, New York Full name Francis Brett Hart Spotty and poor education By the age of eleven, Harte had published a number of poems. 1845, Bret Harte ’ s father dies His mother moved to California in 1853 to remarry.

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Bret Harte

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  1. Bret Harte 1836 -1902

  2. Childhood • Born in Albany, New York • Full name Francis Brett Hart • Spotty and poor education • By the age of eleven, Harte had published a number of poems. • 1845, Bret Harte’s father dies • His mother moved to California in 1853 to remarry. • 1854, Bret Harte and his sister, Margaret, join the family in California.

  3. California Years • First few years drifted from job to job. • Job as a typesetter in Northern California and reporter for the weekly newspaper Northern Californian • Editorial on the Wiyot Indians Gunther's Island Massacre in 1860 • San Francisco • The Golden Era • Job at the U.S. Mint • 1862 - Married Anna Griswold, they have 4 children

  4. Fame and Trouble • During the Civil War, Harte wrote twenty-two poems • Overland Monthly, founded in 1868 with Harte as its editor. Two of his most memorable pieces were published in this magazine, "The Luck of Roaring Camp" and "The Outcasts of Poker Flat". • Rejected job offers as professor, editor, columnist, publisher • Harte remained jobless and suffers great financial troubles

  5. Bret Harte and Mark Twain • After moving to his native New York his collaboration with Mark Twain on the play Ah Sin (1877) • Play fails. • Harte and Twain have a falling out.

  6. Mark Twain on Harte • “In the early days I liked Bret Harte and so did the others, but by and by I got over it; so also did the others. He couldn't keep a friend permanently. He was bad, distinctly bad; he had no feeling and he had no conscience.” • “Harte is a liar, a thief, a swindler, a snob, a sot, a sponge, a coward.” • “I detest him, because I think his work is 'shoddy.' His forte is pathos but there should be no pathos which does not come out of a man's heart. He has no heart, except his name, and I consider he has produced nothing that is genuine. He is artificial.”

  7. In Europe • U.S. Consul position in Germany - 1878 • Frequent visits to Great Britain • Transfer to Glasglow, Scotland until 1885 • His wife and two of his children followed Harte to London after 1898. • Kept man - Madame Hydeline Van de Velde. • Harte continued to write with little public recognition until his death from throat cancer in 1902.

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