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Although American author Bret Harte is most readily associated with stories about the West, it is his skill with characterization that distinguishes him from the hundreds of others who set fictional tales in the region. The miners, soldiers, gamblers, entrepreneurs, and lost souls who populate these pages are limned with Harte's unique combination of dry wit and tender pathos.

This charming collection of Harte's short stories focuses on life in old California and includes Openings in the Old Trail, Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff, The Landlord of the Big Flume Hotel, A Buckeye Hollow Inheritance, The Reincarnation of Smith, Lanty Foster's Mistake, An Ali Baba of the Sierras, Miss Peggy's Proteges, and The Goddess of Excelsior.

Bret Harte (1836-1902) was born in Albany, New York, and was raised in New York City. He had no formal education, but he inherited a love for books. Harte 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 US 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.

Patrick Cullen (a.k.a. John Lescault), a native of Massachusetts, is a graduate of the Catholic University of America. He lives in Washington, DC, where he works in theater.