The story takes place in a small struggling mining town located in the foothills of the California mountains at the time of the gold rush.

Bret Harte and his colleague Anton Roman at the Overland Monthly were in Santa Cruz, California when "The Luck of Roaring Camp" was set in type in the summer of 1868.

[5] After the collection's publication in April 1870, Fields rushed a compilation of Harte's poetry for the Christmas market to capitalize on the success of "The Heathen Chinee".

The Springfield Republican called it "a genuine California story" that was "so true to nature and so deep-reaching in its humor, that it will move the hearts of men everywhere".

[7] Mark Twain wrote in the Buffalo Express that it was "the best prose magazine article that has seen the light for many months on either side of the ocean".

[9] Years after its publication, Harte said that conservative readers thought the story lacked morality: "Christians were cautioned against pollution by its contract", he wrote, and "business men were gravely urged to condemn and frown upon this picture of California society that was not conducive to Eastern immigrants.

40 in the Zamorano 80 list of distinguished books on California, the synopsis being, according to Leslie E. Bliss, Chief Librarian at Huntington Library (1924-1958): "The author wrote these sketches "to illustrate an era" and was later criticized for having romanticized rather than having realistically depicted life "in the diggings."

[citation needed] The film was adapted and directed by character actor Frank McGlynn Sr.; his son Thomas played the role of Tommy Luck.

[citation needed] Paramount Pictures produced a Will Rogers adaptation, Roaring Camp, in 1916, featuring L. Frank Baum as Oakhurst.