Pierce is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Carolina. In the following essay, he examines Harte's treatment of questions of morality and corruption in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat. "

When "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" appeared in the January 1869 issue of the California journal Overland Monthly, it was widely praised as yet another example of Bret Harte's literary genius. The periodical Fun considered it "worthy of Hawthorne," while the New Eclectic magazine thought it "droll and humorous, and at the same time deeply pathetic." When it appeared in a collection entitled The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches, William Dean Howells, editor of the Atlantic Monthly and one of the most influential American critics of the time, singled out "The Outcasts" for particular praise, noting Harte's "very fine and genuine" style of representing life in the American West, particularly California. However, not all...