BRET HARTE
Francis Bret Harte, or as he later called himself Bret Harte, was born in Albany, New York, August 25, 1836. He came of mixed English, Dutch, and Hebrew stock. The family led a wandering life, full of privations, till the death of the father, a schoolmaster, in 1845. In 1853 the widow moved to California, where she married Colonel Andrew Williams. Thither the son followed her in 1854.
As tutor, express messenger, printer, drug clerk, miner, and editor he spent the three years till 1857, when he settled in San Francisco, where he became a printer in the office of The Golden Era. Soon he began to contribute articles to the paper, and was promoted to the editorial room. In 1862 he married Miss Anna Griswold, and in 1864 he was appointed secretary of the California mint. He continued writing, and in the same year was engaged on a weekly, The Californian. In 1867 the first collection of his poems was published under the title of "The Lost Galleon and Other Tales." When The Overland Monthly was founded in the next year Bret Harte became its first editor. To its second number he contributed "Luck of Roaring Camp." Though received with much question in California, it met a most enthusiastic reception in the East, the columns of The Atlantic Monthly being thrown open to him. This success he followed six months later by another, "The Outcasts of Poker Flat." His next great success was the poem "Plain Language from Truthful James," which was in the September, 1870, number of the magazine. It made him famous though he attached little importance to it. In this year he was made Professor of Recent Literature in the University of California.
Debt, friction with the new owner of The Overland, and a growing lack of sympathy with the late settlers, caused Bret Harte to leave California in 1871. He came East and devoted himself entirely to writing, his work being published for one year altogether in The Atlantic Monthly. But his ever recurring financial difficulties becoming acute, he did some lecturing in addition. In 1876 appeared his only novel, "Gabriel Conroy," which was not a success. His money difficulties continuing, his friends came to the rescue and secured his appointment as United States Consul at Crefeld, Germany. Leaving his wife, whom he never saw again, he sailed in 1878. At this post he continued for two years, his life being varied by a lecture tour in England. In 1880 he was transferred to the more lucrative consulship at Glasgow.
In Glasgow he remained for five years, writing, meeting some eminent writers, and visiting different parts of the country. In 1885, a new President having taken office, he was superseded in his consulship. He then settled in London, devoting himself to writing with only an occasional trip away, once as far as Switzerland. In 1901 he died.
REFERENCES
Biography
Merwin: The Life of Bret Harte.
Pemberton: Life of Bret Harte.
Criticism
Woodberry: America in Literature.
NOTES TO "THE OUTCASTS OF POKER FLAT"
This story was first published in The Overland Monthly of San Francisco in 1869.
Page [134]. Poker Flat: an actual place in Sierra County, California. The name is typical of a large class of western geographic names bestowed by rough uneducated men when the West was new. moral atmosphere: these western mining towns in 1850 in a region which had just become a part of the United States as a result of the War with Mexico, were largely unorganized and without regularly constituted government. The bad element did as it pleased until the better people got tired. Then a "vigilance committee" would be organized, which would either drive out the undesirables, as in this story, or would execute the entire lot.
[135]. sluice robber: one way of separating gold from the gravel and sand in which it is found is to put the mixture into a slanting trough, called a sluice, through which water is run. As these sluices were sometimes of considerable length, it was not a difficult matter for a man to rob one.
[136]. Parthian: the Parthians inhabited a part of ancient Persia. It was their custom when retreating to continue to shoot arrows at their enemy.
[142]. Covenanter: one of that body of Scotchmen who had bound themselves by a solemn covenant or agreement in the seventeenth century to uphold the Presbyterian faith. This act required force of character, since it was in defiance of King Charles I, and this force was shown in the vigor of their hymns.
[144]. Iliad: the ancient Greek epic poem, ascribed to Homer, which tells the story of the war of the Greeks against Troy. Alexander Pope (1688-1744), an English poet, who rather freely translated the poem.
[147]. Derringer: a pistol, so called from the name of the inventor.