Produced by Donald Lainson
SELECTED STORIES OF BRET HARTE
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP
THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT
MIGGLES
TENNESSEE'S PARTNER
THE IDYL OF RED GULCH
BROWN OF CALAVERAS
HIGH-WATER MARK
A LONELY RIDE
THE MAN OF NO ACCOUNT
MLISS
THE RIGHT EYE OF THE COMMANDER
NOTES BY FLOOD AND FIELD
AN EPISODE OF FIDDLETOWN
BARKER'S LUCK
A YELLOW DOG
A MOTHER OF FIVE
BULGER'S REPUTATION
IN THE TULES
A CONVERT OF THE MISSION
THE INDISCRETION OF ELSBETH
THE DEVOTION OF ENRIQUEZ
INTRODUCTION
The life of Bret Harte divides itself, without adventitious forcing,into four quite distinct parts. First, we have the precocious boyhood,with its eager response to the intellectual stimulation of culturedparents; young Bret Harte assimilated Greek with amazing facility;devoured voraciously the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Irving,Froissart, Cervantes, Fielding; and, with creditable success, attemptedvarious forms of composition. Then, compelled by economic necessity, heleft school at thirteen, and for three years worked first in a lawyer'soffice, and then in a merchant's counting house.
The second period, that of his migration to California, includes allthat is permanently valuable of Harte's literary output. Arriving inCalifornia in 1854, he was, successively, a school-teacher, drug-storeclerk, express messenger, typesetter, and itinerant journalist. Heworked for a while on the NORTHERN CALIFORNIA (from which he wasdismissed for objecting editorially to the contemporary California sportof murdering Indians), then on the GOLDEN ERA, 1857, where he achievedhis first moderate acclaim. In this latter year he married Anne Griswoldof New York. In 1864 he was given the secretaryship of the Californiamint, a virtual sinecure, and he was enabled do a great deal of writing.The first volume of his poems, THE LOST GALLEON AND OTHER TALES,CONDENSED NOVELS (much underrated parodies), and THE BOHEMIAN PAPERSwere published in 1867. One year later, THE OVERLAND MONTHLY, whichhad aspirations of becoming "the ATLANTIC MONTHLY of the West," wasestablished, and Harte was appointed its first editor. For it, he wrotemost of what still remains valid as literature--THE LUCK OF ROARINGCAMP, THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES,among others. The combination of Irvingesque romantic glamor andDickensian bitter-sweet humor, applied to picturesquely novel material,with the addition of a trick ending, was fantastically popular. Editorsbegan to clamor for his stories; the University of California appointedhim Professor of recent literature; and the ATLANTIC MONTHLY offered himthe practically unprecedented sum of $10,000 for exclusive rights to oneyear's literary output. Harte's star was, briefly, in the ascendant.
However, Harte had accumulated a number of debts, and his editorialpolicies, excellent in themselves, but undiplomatically executed, werethe cause of a series of arguments with the publisher of the OVERLANDMONTHLY. Fairly assured of profitable pickings in the East, heleft California (permanently, as it proved). The East, however, wasfinancially unappreciative. Harte wrote an unsuccessful novel andcollaborated with Mark Twain on an unremunerative play. His attemptsto increase his income by lecturing were even less rewarding. Fromhis departure from California in 1872 to his death thirty years later,Harte's struggles to regain financial stability were unremitting: andto these efforts is due the relinquishment of his early ideal of "apeculiarly characteristic Western American literature." Henceforth Harteaccepted, as Prof. Hicks remarks, "the role of entertainer, and as anentertainer he survived for thirty years his death as an artist."
The final period extends from 1878, when he managed to get himselfappointed consul to Crefeld in Germany, to 1902, when he died of athroat cancer. He left for Crefeld without his wife or son--perhapsintending, as his letters indicate, to call them to him whencircumstances allowed; but save for a few years prior to his death, theseparation, for whatever complex of reasons, remained permanent. Harte,however, continued to provide for them as liberally as he was able. InCrefeld Harte wrote A LEGEND OF SAMMERSTANDT, VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION,and UNSER KARL. In 1880 he transferred to the more lucrative consulshipof Glasgow, and ROBIN GRAY, a tale of Scottish life, is the product ofhis stay there. In 1885 he was dismissed from his consulship, probablyfor political reasons, though neglect of duty was charged against him.He removed to London where he remained, for most part, until his death.
Bret Harte never really knew the life of the mining camp. His miningexperiences were too fragmentary, and consequently his portraits ofmining life are wholly impressionistic. "No one," Mark Twain wrote,"can talk the quartz dialect correctly without learning it with pick andshovel and drill and fuse." Yet, Twain added elsewhere, "Bret Harte gothis California and his Californians by unconscious absorption, and putboth of them into his tales alive." That is, perhaps, the final comment.Much could be urged against Harte's stories: the glamor they throw overthe life they depict is largely fictitious; their pathetic endingsare obviously stylized; their technique is overwhelmingly derivative.Nevertheless, so excellent a critic as Chesterton maintained that "Thereare more than nine hundred and ninety-nine excellent reasons whichwe could all have for admiring the work of Bret Harte." The figure isperhaps exaggerated, but there are many reasons for admiration. First,Harte originated a new and incalculably influential type of story: theromantically picturesque "human-interest" story. "He created the localcolor story," Prof. Blankenship remarks, "or at least popularizedit, and he gave new form and intent to the short story." Charactermotivating action is central to this type of story, rather than mooddominating incident. Again Harte's style is really an eminently skilfulone, admirably suited to his subjects. He can manage the humorous or thepathetic excellently, and his restraint in each is more remarkable thanhis excesses. His sentences have both force and flow; his backgroundsare crisply but carefully sketched; his characters and caricatures havetheir own logical consistency. Finally, granted the desirability of thetheatric finale, it is necessary to admit that Harte always rings downhis curtain dramatically and effectively.
ARTHUR ZEIGER, M.A.