Francis Bret Harte, born Francis Brett Hart on 25 August 1836 in Albany, New York, and dead on 5 May 1902 in Camberley, Surrey, England, was the first American writer to make the Gold Rush West seem not merely picturesque or exotic but worthy of a literature of its own. Before Harte, the Pacific frontier had often appeared in Eastern writing as a distant field of adventure, speculation, and caricature. Harte helped g…
“I am to all appearance utterly friendless; I have not received the first act of kindness or courtesy from any one, and I suppose this man sees it.”
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Folk & Ballad Poets, Light Verse Poets, Victorian Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Irony
George Sterling was born on 1 December 1869 in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, and died on 17 November 1926 in San Francisco, California. During his lifetime he was celebrated, often extravagantly, as the foremost poet of the American Pacific Coast: a writer of redwood groves, desert immensities, sea fog, cosmic fire, erotic dream, and supernatural terror. His reputation later suffered a dramatic eclipse. The rich…
Neighbourhood:
American Poets, Decadent Poets, Edwardian Poets, Symbolist Poets
Emotional landscape: Sorrow, Longing, Tenderness
