Christmas Past by Thomas Ruys Smith

Author:Thomas Ruys Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: LSU Press
Published: 2021-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

HOW SANTA CLAUS CAME TO SIMPSON’S BAR

BRET HARTE

From Mrs. Skagg’s Husbands, and Other Sketches

(Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1873), 55–79.

Bret Harte’s rise to literary prominence in the wake of the Civil War was meteoric. A New Yorker by birth, Harte moved to California in the 1850s, and his tales of life in the West captured the imagination of American readers looking for distraction from the aftermath of the recent national conflict. Mixing rough emotion with earthy realism, Harte’s stories of mining life established his fame around the world—much to the chagrin of his sometime friend and frequent enemy Mark Twain. This Christmas sketch is a perfect example of Harte’s talents: his portrait of motley miners mixes broad comedy and seasonal pathos in equal measure. Its reference to Jim Smiley as a “fool” and a “skunk” is also a knowing dig in Twain’s ribs—Smiley was one of Twain’s most famous literary creations at this time.

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