The Three Partners

Harte, Bret, 1836-1902Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

3.3

Word count: 362K words
Chapters: 37

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Three Partners by Bret HarteAuthor: Harte, Bret, 1836-1902,Language: English, Class: PS: Language and Literatures: American and Canadian literature, Release Date: May 18, 2006

Editor's review

"The Three Partners" is a novel by Bret Harte set in the American mining country of the West that he knew best. Harte excelled in both short stories and longer fiction, and his work often features gold-rush towns, miners, and marginal figures; this book continues his attention to the human ties and conflicts of interest in Western society. How the partnership of the three men unfolds, and how it is sustained or broken in the peculiar environment of the mining camp, is the key to understanding the novel. As a public-domain ebook, this edition is released by Project Gutenberg, giving readers free access to the English original. It can serve as an introductory sample of nineteenth-century American Western literature, and may be read alongside Harte's short stories to appreciate his narrative pacing and character portrayal. Note that the original is in English and dates from the nineteenth century, so some vocabulary and sentence patterns pose a certain barrier for contemporary readers.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in American Western literature and gold-rush themes
Readers who want to encounter Bret Harte's fiction through the English original
Undergraduates or enthusiasts studying nineteenth-century American regional literature
Readers accustomed to public-domain ebooks who prefer free resources

Not a good fit for

Readers who want a Chinese translation and would rather not face the English original
Readers who prefer fast-paced contemporary narrative
Complete beginners unfamiliar with the nineteenth-century American West

Reading tips

Read one of Harte's representative short stories first to get used to his style before starting this novel.
As you read, pay attention to the distribution of profits and the shifts in feeling among the three partners; character-relationship notes may help.
When you meet nineteenth-century colloquialisms or mining-camp terms, infer from context first rather than looking up every word.
Reading with a basic knowledge of the American gold rush can help you understand the characters' circumstances.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in English or Chinese?

The original is in English, released as an ebook by Project Gutenberg; the materials provided include no Chinese translation. Readers need some English reading ability, or a dictionary tool.

Do I need to know other works by Bret Harte first?

No. The book can be read on its own. Still, Harte is known for Western subjects, and reading one or two of his short stories first can help you adapt to his pacing and character portrayal.

Is this book suitable for studying Western literature?

It can serve as introductory material. It reflects Harte's attention to mining towns and marginal figures, but research should draw on literary-historical sources and Harte's other works rather than concluding from a single text.

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About the author

Harte, Bret, 1836-1902 Author

Bret Harte (1836-1902) was an American writer best known for his stories of life during the California Gold Rush. He portrayed the varied characters of mining towns with a style that blends humor, sentiment, and realism, often using unexpected turns to reveal both the warmth and the absurdity of human nature. The collection here includes sixty-three of his works, among them The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales, Tennessee's Partner, Frontier Stories, Selected Stories of Bret Harte, East and West: Poems, Salomy Jane, and the Complete Poetical Works, covering both short fiction and poetry. These works draw largely on the everyday life and legends of the western frontier and have influenced later American Western literature. Public information on his life and education is limited, so no conjecture is offered here.