The American West. A landscape hewn in vastness as its rips from Plains, to deserts, to mountain, to ocean overlaid by waves of emigration of peoples either dispossessed or searching for a new life and the American dream.  These are their stories.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart.  A few pages can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that is difficult to achieve elsewhere.

In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author?

The theme itself will form the boundaries for our stories which range from well-known classics, newly told, to stories that modern times have overlooked but perfectly exemplify the theme.  Throughout the volume our authors whether of instant recognition or new to you are all leviathans of literature.

Some you may disagree with but they will get you thinking; about our choices and about those you would have made.  If this volume takes you on a path to discover more of these miniature masterpieces then we have all gained something.

In this compilation –

01 – The Top Ten – Bret Harte – An Introduction

02 – The Outcasts of Poker Flat by Bret Harte

03 – The Luck of Roaring Camp by Bret Harte

04 – The Iliad of Sandy Bar by Bret Harte

05 – Tennessee s Partner by Bret Harte

06 – The Man of No Account by Bret Harte

07 – Brown of Calaveras by Bret Harte

08 – A Jersey Centarian by Bret Harte

09 – The Poet of Sierra Flat by Bret Harte

10 – The Yellow Dog by Bret Harte

11 – A Lonely Ride by Bret Harte