Local presses in California were unimpressed by "The Luck of Roaring Camp". The Alta California, for example, e, is described simply as "a pleasant little sketch".[7] Publications closer to the east coast, however, soon raised the story's popularity. 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".[8] It was only after these endorsements that "The Luck of Roaring Camp" found a strong audience in California. "Since Boston endorsed the story, San Francisco was properly proud of it", Harte wrote.[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."[4]
However, the book was designated No. 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." Nevertheless, one cannot imagine a bibliography of outstanding California literature that does not include this little volume."
