The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature by Ben Tarnoff (review)

Ernest Hemingway famously claimed that all of American literature came from Huckleberry Finn, but Ben Tarnoff goes back two decades to argue, as his subtitle suggests, that Mark Twain, along with three other writers, reinvented American literature during the Bohemian San Francisco literary scene of the 1860s. While the claim might be hyperbolic, especially since two of the writers are minor figures and the third declined in influence during his own time, Tarnoff has written an enjoyable, readable, and thoroughly researched book for a general audience that will also interest academic readers.

Besides Mark Twain, the other three writers are Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Ina Coolbrith. Bret Harte is a familiar figure in American humor studies, and his friendship, collaboration, and ultimate falling out with Mark Twain have been treated fully elsewhere. Charles Warren Stoddard achieved minor fame as a poet and nonfiction writer and is familiar in Mark Twain studies as his traveling companion and secretary during an 1873 trip to England. Ina Coolbrith was a minor poet, even in her limited sphere. Much of Tarnoff’s argument, then, depends on Mark Twain, and while Mark Twain is certainly the center, all the writers play a part.

The book is divided into three main sections: “Pioneers,” “Bonanza and Bust,” and “Exile.” The first chapters introduce the central characters: the story of Sam Clemens/Mark Twain in Nevada, then his first visit to San Francisco in 1863; Bret Harte working at the U.S. Mint and writing for the Golden Era; Ina Coolbrith, a poet, but also a schoolteacher, who had the responsibility of caring for her ailing mother; and Charles Warren Stoddard, youngest of the group, an aspiring gay poet in an era when sexual orientation had to be kept hidden. The story traces Mark Twain’s work as San Francisco correspondent for the Morning Call, then as a writer for the Golden Era. Bret Harte achieves the first national success with publication in the Atlantic Monthly. Mark Twain and Bret Harte are the twin polar stars of the narrative: colleagues, friends, collaborators, and eventually enemies, at least from Mark Twain’s perspective. Like polar stars, they are seemingly on opposite sides of the wheel of fortune—Harte ascends, Mark Twain descends, then the reverse. Harte rises as he cofounds in 1864 with Charles Henry Webb a literary weekly, The Californian. Mark Twain comes back to San Francisco and falls on the hardest times of his young career, helped somewhat by writing for Harte’s publication.

In the “Bonanza and Bust” section, the heart of the book, Mark Twain achieves national acclaim with “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” while Harte’s collection of California poets (including Coolbrith and Stoddard) is blasted by local critics. Tarnoff asserts that Mark Twain’s story changed the course of American literature, bringing the fresh spirit of the Far West to American writing. Mark Twain’s visit to Hawai’i and his subsequent triumph as a lecturer in San Francisco and Nevada follow, leading to the publication of his first book and the Quaker City cruise in 1867. In 1868, Harte started the Overland Monthly, a far western counterpart to the Atlantic Monthly. In its second issue, he published “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” which became a national sensation. Stoddard, Coolbrith, and Mark Twain wrote for the new literary magazine—Mark Twain’s contribution being an excerpt from The Innocents Abroad (1869), partly as a repayment to Harte for his help editing the Quaker City letters into a book. Tarnoff ties the recently completed Transcontinental Railroad to the enhanced national importance of San Francisco—economic, of course, but also literary and cultural.

1870 brought Harte’s “The Heathen Chinee,” which introduced the character Ah Sin. Harte was on the ascent: the Atlantic tried to lure him east with an offer of $5,000 per year to write for them, which...