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The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)

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Edited by the leading Bret Harte scholar and biographer, the Penguin edition of Harte's writings includes the famous Overland Monthly stories ("The Luck of Roaring Camp" etc) as well as a briefly representative selection of Harte's poems, essays, later fiction, and his delightful "Condensed Novels." Scharnhorst's authoritative introduction includes biographical information gleaned from the editor's extensive primary research and offers informed readings of the stories. Any fan of 19th century fiction who has not read Harte's "Condensed Novels" is in for a treat. It's too bad this edition only had room for 3 of these parodies in which Harte mimicked the style of other popular authors. (I wish "Miss Mix," the Jane Eyre parody, were included.) The Scharnhorst-Penguin edition includes Harte's parodies of Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, Dickens' A Christmas Carol, and Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes mysteries. The notes, while brief and unobtrusive, include curiosities that only Scharnhorst could tell us, like the fact that Conan Doyle contributed to a fund to support Harte's family after the author's death. Harte's Overland stories are widely available. This edition of his work also provides a rare glimpse into genres of the author's work that are less well known and equally delightful, selected by the scholar who knows Harte better than anyone else.