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. The proofreader in their absence, Sarah B. Cooper, objected to some of the content in the story.[3] She particularly disliked the use of a prostitute character and the expletives spoken by the miners.[4] Cooper brought her concerns to the printer, who agreed with her and contacted Roman, the owner. He began to worry about the potential controversy over the story's morality and the harm it would cause to the new Overland Monthly in its second issue.[3] Roman later claimed he supported Harte from the beginning,[4] but that Harte was willing to make the editorial changes without question until Roman's wife read the tale and approved of it. Harte called those claims "lies" in 1879.[3] Fellow Overland contributor Ina Coolbrith recalled there was a confrontation between the two at the time and that Harte threatened to resign.[4]
"The Luck of Roaring Camp" was soon included as the centerpiece of Harte's collection The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches. The compilation was published by James T. Fields of Fields, Osgood, & Co. at about the same time that Harte's poem "The Heathen Chinee" was published. Those simultaneous publications caused Harte's popularity to skyrocket nearly overnight and Fields offered Harte a $10,000 exclusive contract to contribute to The Atlantic Monthly.[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".[6]
