The feature that made him a writer of regional realism was his ability to report on life at the time of the Gold Rush by combining realistic descriptions of specific regional features of California life with sentimental plots, and this created the mythology by which Americans learned to understand the "Old West" culture.
Francis Bret Harte (1836 - 1902) was an American author and poet, who worked in a number of different professional capacities including miner, teacher, messenger and journalist before turning to full time writing in 1871.
