Classic Stories of the American West

Product Description Three classic tales in a single collection by legendary authors Stephen Crane, Bret Harte, and Jack London. [Read by David Birney, Jonathan Fink, Robert Forster, Arte Johnson, Stephen Hoye, Stefan Rudnicki, William Windom, Rex Linn] The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky by Stephen Crane On a train steaming toward the Texas town of Yellow Sky are Marshal Jack Potter and his bride. Meanwhile, town villain Scratchy Wilson is on the prowl. A revolver in each hand, Scratchy is drunk and belligerent. And when none of the townspeople accepts his offer to fight, he awaits the marshal's return. The Outcast of Poker Flat by Bret Harte As gambler John Oakhurst steps into the main street of Poker Flat on the morning of the twenty-third of November, 1850, he is conscious of a change in the town's moral atmosphere. Two or three men, conversing earnestly together, cease as he approaches, and significant glances are exchanged. A Sabbath lull fills the air in a settlement unused to such influences. Love of Life by Jack London Two gold prospectors, Bill and an unnamed man, are struggling to survive on the frozen tundra of Canada. They cross the desolate land in search for food, all the while suffering from starvation and exposure to the elements. When the unnamed man sprains his ankle, Bill abandons him and proceeds through the wilderness, his will to survive put to the test. About the Author Stephen Crane (1871-1900) was an American novelist, poet, and journalist. He worked as a reporter of slum life in New York and a highly paid war correspondent for newspaper tycoons William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. He wrote many works of fiction, poems, and accounts of war, all well received but none as acclaimed as his 1895 Civil War novel, The Red Badge of Courage. Today he is considered one of the most innovative American writers of the 1890s and one of the founders of literary realism. Bret Harte (1836-1902) was born in Albany, New York, and was raised in New York City. He had no formal education, but he inherited a love for books. Harte wrote for the San Franciscan Golden Era paper. There he published his first condensed novels, which were brilliant parodies of the works of well-known authors, such as Dickens and Cooper. Later, he became clerk in the US branch mint. This job gave Harte time to also work for the Overland Monthly, where he published his world-famous ''Luck of the Roaring Camp'' and commissioned Mark Twain to write weekly articles. In 1871, Harte was hired by the Atlantic Monthly for $10,000 to write twelve stories a year, which was the highest figure paid to an American writer at the time. Jack London (1876-1916) was an American author, journalist, and social activist. Before making a living at his writing, he spent time as an oyster pirate, a sailor, a cannery worker, a gold miner, and a journalist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction writing. He is best known for his novels The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set during the Klondike gold rush, as well as the short stories ''To Build a Fire,'' ''An Odyssey of the North,'' and ''Love of Life.'' He also wrote of the South Pacific in such stories as ''The Pearls of Parlay'' and ''The Heathen.'' He was a passionate advocate of unionization, socialism, and the rights of workers and wrote several powerful works dealing with these topics, including The Iron Heel, The People of the Abyss, and The War of the Classes.