From 1869, the year the final spike was driven into the transcontinental railroad, to 1876, when George Custer died at the Little Big Horn and the United States celebrated its centennial, Bret Harte enjoyed fame as the most popular and original writer in America, largely for his tales of California life. The Union Pacific Railroad had linked East with West, and New Yorkers were eager to know what the country now only five days away by train was like. By the late 1870s American readers were drawn to Ned Buntline's transformation of William F. Cody into Buffalo Bill, Prentiss Ingraham's "shoot-em-ups," and Edward J. Wheeler's western romances featuring outlaws as Robin Hood types. To a great extent Bret Harte earned the obscurity which fell nearly as fast as his fame had soared because to the day he died he did not try much to make any significant developments in the...