THE MAYOR OF SAN FRANCISCO HAS A LITTLE PROBLEM

Her name is Yerba Buena. She's the daughter of a woman who convinces the Mayor to make her his guardian and the trustee of her fortunes.

But then the Mayor dies.

Years later, Yerba Buena has grown up. Her mother claimed her to be none other than Dona Maria Concepcion de Arguello de la Yerba Buena, the last descendent of a great Spanish House.

Paul Hathaway, her ward, falls in love with her.

But Yerba Buena begins to doubt her origins.

What, then, is her true secret?


In A Ward of the Golden Gate, Bret Harte shows once more his complete mastery of his art. It is by far the best work he has done in recent years and convincingly demonstrates his right to a prominent place not only in the front ranks of American novelists, but among the best living writers of the Anglo-Saxon world.

-- Book Chat, January 1891