The Golden Era

The publication featured the writing of Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard (writing at first as "Pip Pepperpod"), Fitz Hugh Ludlow, Adah Isaacs Menken, Ada Clare, Prentice Mulford, Dan De Quille,[1] J. S. Hittell and some women such as Frances Fuller Victor.

[5] He had previously published his first poem in the Golden Era in 1857[6] and, in October of that same year, his first prose piece on "A Trip Up the Coast".

[7] Twain later recalled that, as an editor, Harte struck "a new and fresh and spirited note" which "rose above that orchestra's mumbling confusion and was recognizable as music".

[10] The result was the Californian, a weekly begun in May 1864, with Webb as publisher and Harte as star contributor and occasional editor.

[11] For the rest of the decade, The Golden Era and The Californian were significant rivals [12] until Harte became the editor of the Overland Monthly in 1868.