Young and ambitious, Twain and Harte form the Bohemian core. The star of the moment is Bret Harte, a rising figure on the national scene and mentor to both Stoddard and Coolbrith. Twain and the Bohemians find inspiration in their surroundings: the dark ironies of frontier humor, the extravagant tales told around the campfires, and the youthful irreverence of the new world being formed in the west. The bards of the moment are the Bohemians: a young Mark Twain, fleeing the draft and seeking adventure literary golden boy Bret Harte struggling gay poet Charles Warren Stoddard and beautiful, haunted Ina Coolbrith, poet and protectorate of the group. The Gold Rush has ended the Civil War threatens to tear apart the country. The unforgettable story of the birth of modern America and the western writers who gave voice to its emerging identityThe Bohemians begins in 1860s San Francisco.

Both of these histories are extraordinary accounts of singular American men and women struggling to make a mark amid the turbulence of their times. The Bohemians gives us wonderful 'before he was famous' glimpses of Twain, and also showcases a collection of innovative and eccentric writers. Whitman's group ( Rebel Souls) inspiried the later San Francisco group ( The Bohemians), whose fortunes and aspirations were ironically boosted by the war, and who believed an original American literary voice could come out of the burgeoning West. The respective stars of the books, Whitman and Twain, were both in their formative years, and each a member of a group whose writing was experimental, satirical, and aimed at challenging the Eastern, Eurocentric, literary establishment.

I am captivated by two histories of American literature and the developing nation between 18: Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians by Justin Martin, and The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature by Ben Tarnoff.

The bohemians by ben tarnoff