The Best of Bret Harte, edited by Wilhelmina Harper in 1947, features the author's most renowned short stories, including "The Luck of Roaring Camp."

Franklin Walker's 1939 study, San Francisco's Literary Frontier, examines the evolution of American writers in the West and assesses Harte in relation to his contemporaries.

Roughing It, Mark Twain's 1872 memoir, recounts life in Virginia City, Nevada, during the 1860s silver mining boom. Twain and Harte were once close friends and both served as journalists on the mining frontier. They both excelled in using local color and vernacular to craft enduring fiction grounded in reality.

Kevin Starr's 1973 book, Americans and the California Dream 1850-1915, offers an insightful study of nineteenth-century California and its significance in shaping the American dream.

The Shirley Letters From the California Mines 1851-1852 is a compilation of writings by Louise Clappe. Under the pseudonym Dame Shirley, Clappe wrote a series of letters to her sister in the East, depicting life during the Gold Rush. This book is a valuable historical resource and a fascinating complement to Bret Harte's fiction.