Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper

Rating:
Summary: An intriguing, moving, biographical study.
Review: Bret Harte: Prince & Pauper is the first scholarly biography of the author to appear in nearly seventy years, and provides a new assessment of the life and achievements of the writer. New sources provide additional insights into Harte's life and times, bringing to life new truths about his finances and separation from family. An intriguing, moving study.

Rating:
Summary: An intriguing, moving, biographical study.
Review: Bret Harte: Prince & Pauper is the first scholarly biography of the author to appear in nearly seventy years, and provides a new assessment of the life and achievements of the writer. New sources provide additional insights into Harte's life and times, bringing to life new truths about his finances and separation from family. An intriguing, moving study.

Rating:
Summary: Well-researched & highly readable:
Review: Give this book as a gift to anyone interested in American literature or American-European cultural exchange in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and treat yourself to a copy, too. It's an innovative biography, bringing characters to life in novelistic scenes, yet maintaining its scholarly authority. Nissen has deliberately chosen a style that a wide audience can enjoy. But he has also done his homework. Manuscripts related to Bret Harte are scattered throughout U.S. and European libraries, and Nissen has performed the laborious task of piecing them together--including many sources previously unknown to Harte scholarship. Through the new research, BRET HARTE: PRINCE AND PAUPER offers, for instance, the most probing anaysis yet of Harte's close relationships with other men. In sum, the book is an illuminating, authoritative, moving portrait of a writer who once enjoyed the acclaim of both popular audiences and the literary establishment. See the author's comments linked to this site. Then read the book.

Rating:
Summary: Well-researched & highly readable:
Review: Give this book as a gift to anyone interested in American literature or American-European cultural exchange in the latter half of the nineteenth century, and treat yourself to a copy, too. It's an innovative biography, bringing characters to life in novelistic scenes, yet maintaining its scholarly authority. Nissen has deliberately chosen a style that a wide audience can enjoy. But he has also done his homework. Manuscripts related to Bret Harte are scattered throughout U.S. and European libraries, and Nissen has performed the laborious task of piecing them together--including many sources previously unknown to Harte scholarship. Through the new research, BRET HARTE: PRINCE AND PAUPER offers, for instance, the most probing anaysis yet of Harte's close relationships with other men. In sum, the book is an illuminating, authoritative, moving portrait of a writer who once enjoyed the acclaim of both popular audiences and the literary establishment. See the author's comments linked to this site. Then read the book.