The Tales of the Argonauts is a volume of short stories published by Bret Harte in 1875. The title is sometimes loosely applied to all Harte's stories of early California.Nothing in the Tales of the Argonauts proper quite equals in merit "The Luck of Roaring Camp," "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" and "Tennessee's Partner," which had appeared in an earlier collection; but "An Iliad of Sandy Bar," "How Santa Claus Came to Simpson's Bar," and some others have been deservedly popular. The Argonauts are the gold seekers of 1849 and the years immediately following. These adventurers came from all quarters of the globe and all ranks of society, and they had in common only the possession of the strength and determination necessary to reach the new Colchis. Here they lived, at first, wholly free from the conventional restraints imposed by an organized society, and each man showed himself for what he was. Many of these primitive social conditions still existed when Harte went to California in 1854, and they made a great impression on the observant boy. He did not use them in literature, however, until he was able to look back on them in the light of experience.

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

ContentsThe rose of Tuolumne -- A passage in the life of Mr. John Oakhurst -- Wan Lee, the pagan -- How old man Plunkett went home -- The fool of Five Forks -- Baby Sylvester -- An episode of Fiddletown -- A Jersey centenarian.

Bret Harte is the editor, writer and friend of whom Mark Twain wrote, "He trimmed and schooled me patiently until he changed me from an awkward utterer of coarse grotesqueness to a writer of paragraphs and chapters." Harte hired Twain to write a story a week for the "Californian" in 1865, a time when Twain was an unknown, relatively untried writer. The author of "The Luck of Roaring Camp," and "The Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" ended up creating a part of literary history that's still treasured today; perhaps it's the most enduring legacy of "California's Gold." "Tales of the Argonauts and Other Sketches" was first published in 1875, a time that Bret Harte was at his lowest literary and professional ebb. Harte had sought to lecture to paying audiences similarly to the incredibly successful tours of Mark Twain. But audiences didn't care for Harte's "dandified" appearance and lackluster in-person delivery. "Tales of the Argonauts" does not include "The Argonauts of '49," one of Harte's best-known tales. It does contain eight other tales told in Harte's inimitable style -- one which influenced generations of other writers of the American West, and which also document, largely, California history and the romance and adventure of the great "Gold Rush."