Selected Stories of Bret Harte | Page 3

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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 cultured parents; young
Bret Harte assimilated Greek with amazing facility; devoured

voraciously the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Irving, Froissart,
Cervantes, Fielding; and, with creditable success, attempted various
forms of composition. Then, compelled by economic necessity, he left
school at thirteen, and for three years worked first in a lawyer's office,
and then in a merchant's counting house.
The second period, that of his migration to California, includes all that
is permanently valuable of Harte's literary output. Arriving in
California in 1854, he was, successively, a school- teacher, drug-store
clerk, express messenger, typesetter, and itinerant journalist. He
worked for a while on the NORTHERN CALIFORNIA (from which he
was dismissed for objecting editorially to the contemporary California
sport of murdering Indians), then on the GOLDEN ERA, 1857, where
he achieved his first moderate acclaim. In this latter year he married
Anne Griswold of New York. In 1864 he was given the secretaryship of
the California mint, 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 PAPERS were published in 1867.
One year later, THE OVERLAND MONTHLY, which had aspirations
of becoming "the ATLANTIC MONTHLY of the West," was
established, and Harte was appointed its first editor. For it, he wrote
most of what still remains valid as literature--THE LUCK OF
ROARING CAMP, THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT, PLAIN
LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL JAMES, among others. The
combination of Irvingesque romantic glamor and Dickensian
bitter-sweet humor, applied to picturesquely novel material, with the
addition of a trick ending, was fantastically popular. Editors began to
clamor for his stories; the University of California appointed him
Professor of recent literature; and the ATLANTIC MONTHLY offered
him the practically unprecedented sum of $10,000 for exclusive rights
to one year's literary output. Harte's star was, briefly, in the ascendant.
However, Harte had accumulated a number of debts, and his editorial
policies, excellent in themselves, but undiplomatically executed, were
the cause of a series of arguments with the publisher of the
OVERLAND MONTHLY. Fairly assured of profitable pickings in the

East, he left California (permanently, as it proved). The East, however,
was financially unappreciative. Harte wrote an unsuccessful novel and
collaborated with Mark Twain on an unremunerative play. His attempts
to increase his income by lecturing were even less rewarding. From his
departure from California in 1872 to his death thirty years later, Harte's
struggles to regain financial stability were unremitting: and to these
efforts is due the relinquishment of his early ideal of "a peculiarly
characteristic Western American literature." Henceforth Harte accepted,
as Prof. Hicks remarks, "the role of entertainer, and as an entertainer he
survived for thirty years his death as an artist."
The final period extends from 1878, when he managed to get himself
appointed consul to Crefeld in Germany, to 1902, when he died of a
throat cancer. He left for Crefeld without his wife or son-- perhaps
intending, as his letters indicate, to call them to him when
circumstances allowed; but save for a few years prior to his death, the
separation, for whatever complex of reasons, remained permanent.
Harte, however, continued to provide for them as liberally as he was
able. In Crefeld Harte wrote A LEGEND OF SAMMERSTANDT,
VIEWS FROM A GERMAN SPION, and UNSER KARL. In 1880 he
transferred to the more lucrative consulship of Glasgow, and ROBIN