| The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature Contributor(s): Tarnoff, Ben (Author) |
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ISBN: 0143126962 ISBN-13: 9780143126966 Publisher: Penguin Books OUR PRICE: $17.10 Product Type: Paperback - Other Formats Published: February 2015 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | American - General - History | United States - 19th Century |
| Dewey: 810.997 |
| Physical Information: 0.9" H x 5.4" W x 8.3" (0.65 lbs) 336 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 19th Century - Cultural Region - Northern California - Geographic Orientation - California - Cultural Region - Western U.S. - Cultural Region - West Coast - Locality - San Francisco, California |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: An extraordinary portrait of a fast-changing America--and the Western writers who gave voice to its emerging identity At once an intimate portrait of an unforgettable group of writers and a history of a cultural revolution in America, The Bohemians reveals how a brief moment on the far western frontier changed our culture forever. Beginning with Mark Twain's arrival in San Francisco in 1863, this group biography introduces readers to the other young eccentric writers seeking to create a new American voice at the country's edge--literary golden boy Bret Harte; struggling gay poet Charles Warren Stoddard; and beautiful, haunted Ina Coolbrith, poet and protector of the group. Ben Tarnoff's elegant, atmospheric history reveals how these four pioneering writers helped spread the Bohemian movement throughout the world, transforming American literature along the way. "Tarnoff's book sings with the humor and expansiveness of his subjects' prose, capturing the intoxicating atmosphere of possibility that defined, for a time, America's frontier." -- The New Yorker "Rich hauls of historical research, deeply excavated but lightly borne.... Mr. Tarnoff's ultimate thesis is a strong one, strongly expressed: that together these writers 'helped pry American literature away from its provincial origins in New England and push it into a broader current'." -- Wall Street Journal |