Professor Raymond Weeks, President of the American Dialect Society, Professor C. Alphonso Smith, Mr. Albert Matthews, and others whose names are mentioned on page 326, have lent their aid in regard to the Pioneer language, and Ernest Knaufft, Bret Harte’s nephew, has not only furnished the Author with some information about his uncle’s early life, but he has also read the proofs, and has made more than one valuable suggestion which the Author was glad to adopt. It is only fair to add that Mr. Knaufft does not in all respects agree with the Author’s estimate of Bret Harte’s character. Another critic, Prescott Hartford Belknap, has put his fine literary taste at the service of the book, and has saved its writer from some mistakes which he now shudders to contemplate.

Most of all, however, the Author is indebted to his accomplished friend, Edwin Munroe Bacon, who, though much engaged with important literary work of his own, has read the book twice, once in MS. and once in print,—a signal, not to say painful proof of friendship which the Author acknowledges with gratitude, and almost with shame.

H. C. M.

CONTENTS

[I.]Bret Harte’s Ancestry[1]
[II.]Bret Harte’s Boyhood[13]
[III.]Bret Harte’s Wanderings in California[18]
[IV.]Bret Harte in San Francisco[32]
[V.]The Pioneer Men and Women[53]
[VI.]Pioneer Life[85]
[VII.]Pioneer Law and Lawlessness[120]
[VIII.]Women and Children among the Pioneers[140]
[IX.]Friendship among the Pioneers[157]
[X.]Gambling in Pioneer Times[168]
[XI.]Other Forms of Business[181]
[XII.]Literature, Journalism and Religion[192]
[XIII.]Bret Harte’s Departure from California[214]
[XIV.]Bret Harte in the East[220]
[XV.]Bret Harte at Crefeld[251]
[XVI.]Bret Harte at Glasgow[266]
[XVII.]Bret Harte in London[274]
[XVIII.]Bret Harte as a Writer of Fiction[293]
[XIX.]Bret Harte as a Poet[308]
[XX.]Bret Harte’s Pioneer Dialect[321]
[XXI.]Bret Harte’s Style[330]
Index[347]

ILLUSTRATIONS