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Bret Harte

January 26, 2023

This article is about the American author. For the Canadian professional wrestler, see Bret Hart. For other uses, see Bret Harte (disambiguation).

Bret Harte (HART; born Francis Brett Hart; August 25, 1836 – May 5, 1902) was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners, gamblers, and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush.

Bret Harte
Bret Harte in 1872
BornFrancis Brett Hart
(1836-08-25)August 25, 1836
Albany, New York, U.S.
DiedMay 5, 1902(1902-05-05) (aged 65)
Camberley, England, UK
OccupationAuthor
GenreFiction, poetry
SpouseAnna Griswold (m. ca. 1862–1902; his death)
Children4[1]
Signature

In a career spanning more than four decades, he also wrote poetry, plays, lectures, book reviews, editorials and magazine sketches.

As he moved from California to the eastern U.S. and later to Europe, he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories, but his Gold Rush tales have been those most often reprinted, adapted and admired.[citation needed]

Biography

Early life

Harte was born in 1836[2] in New York's capital city of Albany.[3] He was named after his great-grandfather, Francis Brett. When he was young, his father, Henry, changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte. Henry's father was Bernard Hart, an Orthodox Jewish immigrant who flourished as a merchant, becoming one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange.[4] Bret's mother, Elizabeth Rebecca Ostrander Hart, was from the English and Dutch culture and raised her child in a Dutch Reformed church.[5] Later, Francis preferred to be known by his middle name, but he spelled it with only one "t", becoming Bret Harte.[6] Harte was of French Huguenot and Dutch ancestry and descended from prominent New York landowner Francis Rombouts.[7]

An avid reader as a boy, Harte published his first work at age 11, a satirical poem titled "Autumn Musings", now lost. Rather than attracting praise, the poem garnered ridicule from his family. As an adult, he recalled to a friend,[who?] "Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse."[8]

His formal schooling[where?] ended when he was 13, in 1849.[9]

Career in California

Harte moved to California in 1853, later working there in a number of capacities, including miner, teacher, messenger, and journalist; he was also secretary of the San Francisco Mint.[10] He spent part of his life in the northern California coastal town of Union (now Arcata), a settlement on Humboldt Bay, as a tutor and school teacher, then a printer's devil on The Northern Californian,[11] and went on to reporting news, writing poems, and occasionally, acting editor, leaving after three years, from lynching threats for writing an editorial about the 26 February 1860 Wiyot massacre.[12] In the editorial, Harte wrote:

[A] more shocking and revolting spectacle was never exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people. Old women, wrinkled and decrepit, lay weltering in blood, their brains dashed out and dabbled with their long gray hair. Infants scarce a span long, with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds."[13]

Union was established as a provisioning center for mining camps in the interior.[citation needed]

The Wells Fargo Messenger of July 1916 relates that after an unsuccessful attempt to make a living in the gold camps, Harte signed on as a messenger with Wells Fargo & Co. Express. He guarded treasure boxes on stagecoaches for a few months, then gave it up to become the schoolmaster at a school near the town of Sonora, in the Sierra foothills. He created his character Yuba Bill from his memory of an old stagecoach driver.

Among Harte's first literary efforts was a poem published in The Golden Era in 1857[14] and, in October of that same year, his first prose piece on "A Trip Up the Coast".[15] In the spring of 1860 he was hired as editor of The Golden Era, which he attempted to make into a more literary publication.[16] Mark Twain later recalled that, as an editor, Harte struck "a new and fresh and spirited note" which "rose above that orchestra's mumbling confusion and was recognizable as music".[17] Among his writings were parodies and satires of other writers, including The Stolen Cigar-Case featuring ace detective "Hemlock Jones", which Ellery Queen praised as "probably the best parody of Sherlock Holmes ever written".[18] These parodies were reissued in book form in 1867.[10]

The 1860 massacre of between 80 and 200 Wiyot Indians at the village of Tuluwat (near Eureka in Humboldt County, California) was reported by Harte in San Francisco and New York. While serving as assistant editor of the Northern Californian,[19] Harte was left in charge of the paper during the temporary absence of his boss, Stephen G. Whipple. Harte published a detailed account condemning the slayings, writing: "[A] more shocking and revolting spectacle never was exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people. Old women wrinkled and decrepit lay weltering in blood, their brains dashed out and dabbled with their long grey hair. Infants scarcely a span long, with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds."[16]

After he published the editorial, Harte's life was threatened, and he was forced to flee one month later. Harte quit his job and moved to San Francisco, where an anonymous letter published in a city paper describing widespread community approval of the massacre was attributed to him. In addition, no one was ever brought to trial, despite the evidence of a planned attack and of references to specific individuals, including a rancher named Larabee and other members of the unofficial militia called the Humboldt Volunteers.[20]

 
Portrait of Bret Harte – oil painting by John Pettie (1884)[21]

Harte married Anna Griswold on August 11, 1862, in San Rafael, California.[22] From the start, the marriage was rocky. Some suggested that she was handicapped by extreme jealousy, while early Harte biographer Henry C. Merwin privately concluded that she was "almost impossible to live with".[9]

The well-known minister Thomas Starr King recommended Harte to James T. Fields, editor of the prestigious magazine The Atlantic Monthly, which published Harte's first short story in October 1863.[23] In 1864, Harte joined with Charles Henry Webb in starting a new literary journal called The Californian. He became friends with and mentored poet Ina Coolbrith.[16]

In 1865, Harte was asked by bookseller Anton Roman to edit a book of California poetry; it was to be a showcase of the finest California writers.[16] When the book, called Outcroppings, was published, it contained only 19 poets, many of them Harte's friends (including Ina Coolbrith and Charles Warren Stoddard). The book caused some controversy, as Harte used the preface as a vehicle to attack California's literature, blaming the state's "monotonous climate" for its bad poetry.[16] While the book was widely praised in the East, many newspapers and poets in the West took umbrage at his remarks.[16]

In 1868, Harte became editor of The Overland Monthly, another new literary magazine, published by Roman Anton with the intention of highlighting local writings.[24] The Overland Monthly was more in tune with the pioneering spirit of excitement in California. Harte's short story "The Luck of Roaring Camp" appeared in the magazine's second issue, propelling him to fame nationwide and in Europe.[19][10]

When word of Charles Dickens's death reached Harte in July 1870, he immediately sent a dispatch across the bay to San Francisco to hold back the forthcoming issue of the Overland Monthly for 24 hours so that he could compose the poetic tribute "Dickens in Camp".

Harte's fame increased with the publication of his satirical poem "Plain Language from Truthful James" in the September 1870 issue of the Overland Monthly.[25] The poem became better known by its alternate title "The Heathen Chinee" after being republished in a Boston newspaper in 1871.[26] It was also quickly republished in a number of other newspapers and journals, including the New York Evening Post, the New York Tribune, the Boston Evening Transcript, the Providence Journal, the Hartford Courant, Prairie Farmer, and the Saturday Evening Post.[27] Harte was chagrined, however, to find that the popularity of the poem, which he had written to criticize the prevalence of anti-Chinese sentiment among the white population of California, was largely the result of its being taken literally by the very people he had lampooned, who completely misconstrued the ironic intent of Harte's words.

 
Portrait of Bret Harte by Napoleon Sarony (c. 1870). Housed at the National Portrait Gallery (United States)

Leaving the West

Harte was determined to pursue his literary career and traveled back east with his family in 1871 to New York and eventually to Boston, where he contracted with the publisher of The Atlantic Monthly for an annual salary of $10,000, "an unprecedented sum at the time".[28] His popularity waned, however, and by the end of 1872, he was without a publishing contract and increasingly desperate. He spent the next few years struggling to publish new work or republish old and delivering lectures about the gold rush. The winter of 1877–78 was particularly hard for Harte and his family. He later recalled it as a "hand-to-mouth life" and wrote to his wife Anna, "I don't know—looking back—what ever kept me from going down, in every way, during that awful December and January".[29]

Some time between 1872 and 1881, Bret Harte rented The Willows, a Morristown, New Jersey mansion then owned by Union general and author Joseph Warren Revere.[30] Harte's time in Morristown inspired him to write 1877 historical romance novel Thankful Blossom.[31]

After months of soliciting for such a role, Harte accepted the position of United States Consul in the town of Krefeld, Germany, in May 1878. Mark Twain had been a friend and supporter of Harte's until a substantial falling out, and he had previously tried to block any appointment for Harte. In a letter to William Dean Howells, he complained that Harte would be an embarrassment to the United States because, as he wrote, "Harte is a liar, a thief, a swindler, a snob, a sot, a sponge, a coward, a Jeremy Diddler, he is brim full of treachery... To send this nasty creature to puke upon the American name in a foreign land is too much".[32] Eventually, Harte was given a similar role in Glasgow in 1880. In 1885 he settled in London.[10] Throughout his time in Europe, he regularly wrote to his wife and children and sent monthly financial contributions. He declined, however, to invite them to join him, nor did he return to the United States to visit them. His excuses were usually related to money. During the 24 years that he spent in Europe, he never abandoned writing and maintained a prodigious output of stories that retained the freshness of his earlier work.

He died in Camberley, England, in 1902 of throat cancer and is buried at Frimley.[33] His wife Anna (née Griswold) Harte died on August 2, 1920. The couple lived together only 16 of the 40 years that they were married.[34]

Reception

In 1878, Andrew Carnegie praised Harte in Round the World as uniquely American, likely alluding to his regionalism:

"A whispering pine of the Sierras transplanted to Fifth Avenue! How could it grow? Although it shows some faint signs of life, how sickly are the leaves! As for fruit, there is none. America had in Bret Harte its most distinctively national poet."[35]

Rudyard Kipling also showed himself to be an admirer of Harte's writing. In From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel,[36] while in San Francisco Kipling wrote:

"A reporter asked me what I thought of the city, and I made answer suavely that it was hallowed ground to me because of Bret Harte. That was true: 'Well,' said the reporter, 'Bret Harte claims California, but California don't claim Bret Harte. ...' He could not understand that to the outside world the city was worth a great deal less than the man."

Mark Twain, however, characterized him and his writing as insincere. Writing in his autobiography four years after Harte's death, Twain criticized the miners' dialect used by Harte, claiming that it never existed outside of his imagination. Additionally, Twain accused Harte of "borrowing" money from his friends with no intention of repaying it and of financially abandoning his wife and children. He referred repeatedly to Harte as "The Immortal Bilk."[37]

Selected works

 
Bret Harte's gravestone in the churchyard of St Peter's Church, Frimley, Surrey, England
 
Inscription on gravestone: "Death shall reap the braver harvest."
  • Outcroppings (1865), editor
  • Condensed Novels and Other Papers (1867)
  • Tennessee's Partner (short story; 1869)[38]
  • The Luck of Roaring Camp, and Other Sketches (1870)
  • "Plain Language from Truthful James", aka "The Heathen Chinee" (1870)
  • Poems (1871)
  • The Heart's Foundation (1873)
  • The Tales of the Argonauts (1875)
  • Gabriel Conroy (1876)
  • Two Men of Sandy Bar (1876)
  • Thankful Blossom (1877)
  • Drift from Two Shores (1878)
  • An Heiress of Red Dog, and Other Tales (1879)
  • Flip and Found at Blazing Star (1882)
  • By Shore and Sedge (1885)
  • A Millionaire of Rough-And-Ready and Devil's Ford (1887)
  • The Crusade of the Excelsior (1887)
  • The Argonauts of North Liberty (1888)
  • Cressy (1889)
  • A First Family of Tasajara (1892)
  • Colonel Starbottle's Client, and some other people (1892)
  • A Protégée of Jack Hamlin's; and Other Stories (1894)
  • Barker's Luck etc. (1896)
  • Tales of Trail and Town (1898)
  • Stories in Light and Shadow (1898)
  • Under the Red-Woods (1901)
  • Her Letter, His Answer, and Her Last Letter[39] (1905)

Dramatic and musical adaptations

Legacy

References

  1. ^ "Bret Harte". Geni. October 28, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2020.
  2. ^ Some sources say he was born in 1837 or 1839. Even his gravestone has the wrong year, 1837. See also Bret Harte Birth Year Set as 1836, Berkeley Daily Gazette, August 15, 1936
  3. ^ Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000: 3. ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
  4. ^ Kanfer, Stefan (1989). A Summer World. New York: Farrar Straus Giroux. p. 40. ISBN 978-0374271800.
  5. ^ "Bret HARTE Science & Magnet Cluster School". www.harte.cps.edu. Retrieved December 2, 2022.
  6. ^ "Bret Harte Biography". eNotes. Retrieved March 16, 2017.
  7. ^ Merwin, Henry Childs. The Life of Bret Harte, page 8
  8. ^ "Autumn Musings" is reported to have been published in the New York Sunday Atlas, according to Theodore Bryant Kingsbury, "Vanity of Earthly Things," Charlotte Observer (North Carolina), December 13, 1903, p. 14. The Atlas may have been one of the Albany newspapers using that title from 1843 to 1855.
  9. ^ a b Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000: 4. ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
  10. ^ a b c d Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Harte, Francis Bret" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 31–32.
  11. ^ "Susie Baker Fountain: Arcata Historian". Humboldt Room - HSU Library Special Collections. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  12. ^ "Harte in Humboldt". Humboldt County Historical Society. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  13. ^ Tarnoff, Benjamin (2014). The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. Penguin Books. ISBN 978-1594204739.
  14. ^ Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000: 6. ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
  15. ^ Nissen, Axel. Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2000: 48–49. ISBN 1-57806-253-5
  16. ^ a b c d e f Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 26–27. ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
  17. ^ Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 28. ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
  18. ^ Davies, David Stuart (1998). Shadows of Sherlock Holmes, p. xvii. Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Editions. ISBN 1-85326-744-9.
  19. ^ a b "Bret Harte". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved August 21, 2017.
  20. ^ (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 7, 2007. Retrieved 2009-06-28.
  21. ^ Gerten-Jackson, Carol. . CGFA. Archived from the original on August 20, 2006. Retrieved June 7, 2006.
  22. ^ Nissen, Axel. Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper. University Press of Mississippi, 2000: 64. ISBN 1-57806-253-5
  23. ^ Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 59. ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
  24. ^ Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 149. ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
  25. ^ Tarnoff, Ben. The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature. New York: The Penguin Press, 2014: 188. ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
  26. ^ Scott, David. China and the International System, 1840–1949: Power, Presence, and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008: 60–61. ISBN 978-0-7914-7627-7
  27. ^ Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000: 146. ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
  28. ^ Scharnhorst, Gary (2001). "Introduction". In Bret Harte, The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Writings, p. xvi. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 0-14-043917-X.
  29. ^ Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000: 133. ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
  30. ^ Strathearn, Nancy (August 16, 1990). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory/Nomination: Fosterfields (Boundary Increase)". National Park Service. With accompanying 28 photos
  31. ^ "The Project Gutenberg E-text of Thankful Blossom, by Bret Harte". www.gutenberg.org. from the original on March 30, 2022. Retrieved March 30, 2022.
  32. ^ Scharnhorst, Gary. Bret Harte: Opening the American Literary West. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 2000: 139. ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
  33. ^ Newburgh Daily Journal, May 6, 1902.
  34. ^ Nissen, Axel. Bret Harte: Prince and Pauper. University Press of Mississippi, 2000: 243–244. ISBN 1-57806-253-5
  35. ^ Andrew Carnegie, Round the World, The Project Gutenberg EBook February 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine
  36. ^ From Sea to Sea; Letters of Travel by Rudyard Kipling - FROM SEA TO SEA No. XXIII How I got to San Francisco and took Tea with the Natives there : Project Gutenberg
  37. ^ Krauth, Leland. Mark Twain & Company: Six Literary Relations. University of Georgia Press, 2003: 23. ISBN 978-0820325408
  38. ^ Coates, Frank (January 1, 1934). "The early history of Tuolumne County, California". Theses and Dissertations. University of the Pacific (United States). p. 139. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
  39. ^ Harte, Bret; Keller, Arthur I. [Illustrator] (1905). Her Letter, His Answer, and Her Last Letter. Houghton, Mifflin & Company.
  40. ^ . Archived from the original on May 18, 2006. Retrieved August 9, 2006.
  41. ^ Organization July 18, 2006, at the Wayback Machine at pikappalambda.capital.edu
  42. ^ "Year of Destiny on Death Valley Days". Internet Movie Database. Retrieved October 30, 2018.
  43. ^ "Bret Harte Memorial, (sculpture)". Save Outdoor Sculpture!. Smithsonian American Art Museum. Retrieved May 9, 2012.
  44. ^ "Mark Twain Bret Harte Historic Trail". HMDB.org.
  45. ^ . Archived from the original on August 21, 2014. Retrieved 2014-08-20.
  46. ^ Scott catalog # 2196.

External links

 
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bret Harte.
 
Wikiquote has quotations related to Bret Harte.
 
Wikisource has original works by or about:
Bret Harte
  • Western American Literature Journal: Bret Harte
  • Brooks, Noah (September 1902). "Bret Harte: A Biographical And Critical Sketch". Overland Monthly, and Out West Magazine. XL (3): 201–207. Retrieved August 15, 2009.
  • Complete bibliography
  • Bret Harte Etexts
  • Works by Bret Harte at Project Gutenberg
  • Works by Bret Harte at Faded Page (Canada)
  • Works by or about Bret Harte at Internet Archive
  • Works by Bret Harte at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)  
  • Guide to the Bret Harte Collection at The Bancroft Library
  • Bret Harte at IMDb
  • Bret Harte letters collection at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection, Smith College Special Collections
  • Bret Harte letters and postal cover, 1874-1986. California State Library, California History Room.
  • Poems by Francis Bret Harte at English Poetry
  • Research Encyclopedias

January 26, 2023
bret, harte, this, article, about, american, author, canadian, professional, wrestler, bret, hart, other, uses, disambiguation, hart, born, francis, brett, hart, august, 1836, 1902, american, short, story, writer, poet, best, remembered, short, fiction, featur. This article is about the American author For the Canadian professional wrestler see Bret Hart For other uses see Bret Harte disambiguation Bret Harte HART born Francis Brett Hart August 25 1836 May 5 1902 was an American short story writer and poet best remembered for short fiction featuring miners gamblers and other romantic figures of the California Gold Rush Bret HarteBret Harte in 1872BornFrancis Brett Hart 1836 08 25 August 25 1836Albany New York U S DiedMay 5 1902 1902 05 05 aged 65 Camberley England UKOccupationAuthorGenreFiction poetrySpouseAnna Griswold m ca 1862 1902 his death Children4 1 SignatureIn a career spanning more than four decades he also wrote poetry plays lectures book reviews editorials and magazine sketches As he moved from California to the eastern U S and later to Europe he incorporated new subjects and characters into his stories but his Gold Rush tales have been those most often reprinted adapted and admired citation needed Contents 1 Biography 1 1 Early life 1 2 Career in California 1 3 Leaving the West 2 Reception 3 Selected works 4 Dramatic and musical adaptations 5 Legacy 6 References 7 External linksBiography EditEarly life Edit Harte was born in 1836 2 in New York s capital city of Albany 3 He was named after his great grandfather Francis Brett When he was young his father Henry changed the spelling of the family name from Hart to Harte Henry s father was Bernard Hart an Orthodox Jewish immigrant who flourished as a merchant becoming one of the founders of the New York Stock Exchange 4 Bret s mother Elizabeth Rebecca Ostrander Hart was from the English and Dutch culture and raised her child in a Dutch Reformed church 5 Later Francis preferred to be known by his middle name but he spelled it with only one t becoming Bret Harte 6 Harte was of French Huguenot and Dutch ancestry and descended from prominent New York landowner Francis Rombouts 7 An avid reader as a boy Harte published his first work at age 11 a satirical poem titled Autumn Musings now lost Rather than attracting praise the poem garnered ridicule from his family As an adult he recalled to a friend who Such a shock was their ridicule to me that I wonder that I ever wrote another line of verse 8 His formal schooling where ended when he was 13 in 1849 9 Career in California Edit Harte moved to California in 1853 later working there in a number of capacities including miner teacher messenger and journalist he was also secretary of the San Francisco Mint 10 He spent part of his life in the northern California coastal town of Union now Arcata a settlement on Humboldt Bay as a tutor and school teacher then a printer s devil on The Northern Californian 11 and went on to reporting news writing poems and occasionally acting editor leaving after three years from lynching threats for writing an editorial about the 26 February 1860 Wiyot massacre 12 In the editorial Harte wrote A more shocking and revolting spectacle was never exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people Old women wrinkled and decrepit lay weltering in blood their brains dashed out and dabbled with their long gray hair Infants scarce a span long with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds 13 Union was established as a provisioning center for mining camps in the interior citation needed The Wells Fargo Messenger of July 1916 relates that after an unsuccessful attempt to make a living in the gold camps Harte signed on as a messenger with Wells Fargo amp Co Express He guarded treasure boxes on stagecoaches for a few months then gave it up to become the schoolmaster at a school near the town of Sonora in the Sierra foothills He created his character Yuba Bill from his memory of an old stagecoach driver Among Harte s first literary efforts was a poem published in The Golden Era in 1857 14 and in October of that same year his first prose piece on A Trip Up the Coast 15 In the spring of 1860 he was hired as editor of The Golden Era which he attempted to make into a more literary publication 16 Mark Twain later recalled that as an editor Harte struck a new and fresh and spirited note which rose above that orchestra s mumbling confusion and was recognizable as music 17 Among his writings were parodies and satires of other writers including The Stolen Cigar Case featuring ace detective Hemlock Jones which Ellery Queen praised as probably the best parody of Sherlock Holmes ever written 18 These parodies were reissued in book form in 1867 10 The 1860 massacre of between 80 and 200 Wiyot Indians at the village of Tuluwat near Eureka in Humboldt County California was reported by Harte in San Francisco and New York While serving as assistant editor of the Northern Californian 19 Harte was left in charge of the paper during the temporary absence of his boss Stephen G Whipple Harte published a detailed account condemning the slayings writing A more shocking and revolting spectacle never was exhibited to the eyes of a Christian and civilized people Old women wrinkled and decrepit lay weltering in blood their brains dashed out and dabbled with their long grey hair Infants scarcely a span long with their faces cloven with hatchets and their bodies ghastly with wounds 16 After he published the editorial Harte s life was threatened and he was forced to flee one month later Harte quit his job and moved to San Francisco where an anonymous letter published in a city paper describing widespread community approval of the massacre was attributed to him In addition no one was ever brought to trial despite the evidence of a planned attack and of references to specific individuals including a rancher named Larabee and other members of the unofficial militia called the Humboldt Volunteers 20 Portrait of Bret Harte oil painting by John Pettie 1884 21 Harte married Anna Griswold on August 11 1862 in San Rafael California 22 From the start the marriage was rocky Some suggested that she was handicapped by extreme jealousy while early Harte biographer Henry C Merwin privately concluded that she was almost impossible to live with 9 The well known minister Thomas Starr King recommended Harte to James T Fields editor of the prestigious magazine The Atlantic Monthly which published Harte s first short story in October 1863 23 In 1864 Harte joined with Charles Henry Webb in starting a new literary journal called The Californian He became friends with and mentored poet Ina Coolbrith 16 In 1865 Harte was asked by bookseller Anton Roman to edit a book of California poetry it was to be a showcase of the finest California writers 16 When the book called Outcroppings was published it contained only 19 poets many of them Harte s friends including Ina Coolbrith and Charles Warren Stoddard The book caused some controversy as Harte used the preface as a vehicle to attack California s literature blaming the state s monotonous climate for its bad poetry 16 While the book was widely praised in the East many newspapers and poets in the West took umbrage at his remarks 16 In 1868 Harte became editor of The Overland Monthly another new literary magazine published by Roman Anton with the intention of highlighting local writings 24 The Overland Monthly was more in tune with the pioneering spirit of excitement in California Harte s short story The Luck of Roaring Camp appeared in the magazine s second issue propelling him to fame nationwide and in Europe 19 10 When word of Charles Dickens s death reached Harte in July 1870 he immediately sent a dispatch across the bay to San Francisco to hold back the forthcoming issue of the Overland Monthly for 24 hours so that he could compose the poetic tribute Dickens in Camp Harte s fame increased with the publication of his satirical poem Plain Language from Truthful James in the September 1870 issue of the Overland Monthly 25 The poem became better known by its alternate title The Heathen Chinee after being republished in a Boston newspaper in 1871 26 It was also quickly republished in a number of other newspapers and journals including the New York Evening Post the New York Tribune the Boston Evening Transcript the Providence Journal the Hartford Courant Prairie Farmer and the Saturday Evening Post 27 Harte was chagrined however to find that the popularity of the poem which he had written to criticize the prevalence of anti Chinese sentiment among the white population of California was largely the result of its being taken literally by the very people he had lampooned who completely misconstrued the ironic intent of Harte s words Portrait of Bret Harte by Napoleon Sarony c 1870 Housed at the National Portrait Gallery United States Leaving the West Edit Harte was determined to pursue his literary career and traveled back east with his family in 1871 to New York and eventually to Boston where he contracted with the publisher of The Atlantic Monthly for an annual salary of 10 000 an unprecedented sum at the time 28 His popularity waned however and by the end of 1872 he was without a publishing contract and increasingly desperate He spent the next few years struggling to publish new work or republish old and delivering lectures about the gold rush The winter of 1877 78 was particularly hard for Harte and his family He later recalled it as a hand to mouth life and wrote to his wife Anna I don t know looking back what ever kept me from going down in every way during that awful December and January 29 Some time between 1872 and 1881 Bret Harte rented The Willows a Morristown New Jersey mansion then owned by Union general and author Joseph Warren Revere 30 Harte s time in Morristown inspired him to write 1877 historical romance novel Thankful Blossom 31 After months of soliciting for such a role Harte accepted the position of United States Consul in the town of Krefeld Germany in May 1878 Mark Twain had been a friend and supporter of Harte s until a substantial falling out and he had previously tried to block any appointment for Harte In a letter to William Dean Howells he complained that Harte would be an embarrassment to the United States because as he wrote Harte is a liar a thief a swindler a snob a sot a sponge a coward a Jeremy Diddler he is brim full of treachery To send this nasty creature to puke upon the American name in a foreign land is too much 32 Eventually Harte was given a similar role in Glasgow in 1880 In 1885 he settled in London 10 Throughout his time in Europe he regularly wrote to his wife and children and sent monthly financial contributions He declined however to invite them to join him nor did he return to the United States to visit them His excuses were usually related to money During the 24 years that he spent in Europe he never abandoned writing and maintained a prodigious output of stories that retained the freshness of his earlier work He died in Camberley England in 1902 of throat cancer and is buried at Frimley 33 His wife Anna nee Griswold Harte died on August 2 1920 The couple lived together only 16 of the 40 years that they were married 34 Reception EditIn 1878 Andrew Carnegie praised Harte in Round the World as uniquely American likely alluding to his regionalism A whispering pine of the Sierras transplanted to Fifth Avenue How could it grow Although it shows some faint signs of life how sickly are the leaves As for fruit there is none America had in Bret Harte its most distinctively national poet 35 Rudyard Kipling also showed himself to be an admirer of Harte s writing In From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches Letters of Travel 36 while in San Francisco Kipling wrote A reporter asked me what I thought of the city and I made answer suavely that it was hallowed ground to me because of Bret Harte That was true Well said the reporter Bret Harte claims California but California don t claim Bret Harte He could not understand that to the outside world the city was worth a great deal less than the man Mark Twain however characterized him and his writing as insincere Writing in his autobiography four years after Harte s death Twain criticized the miners dialect used by Harte claiming that it never existed outside of his imagination Additionally Twain accused Harte of borrowing money from his friends with no intention of repaying it and of financially abandoning his wife and children He referred repeatedly to Harte as The Immortal Bilk 37 Selected works Edit Bret Harte s gravestone in the churchyard of St Peter s Church Frimley Surrey England Inscription on gravestone Death shall reap the braver harvest Outcroppings 1865 editor Condensed Novels and Other Papers 1867 Tennessee s Partner short story 1869 38 The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches 1870 Plain Language from Truthful James aka The Heathen Chinee 1870 Poems 1871 The Heart s Foundation 1873 The Tales of the Argonauts 1875 Gabriel Conroy 1876 Two Men of Sandy Bar 1876 Thankful Blossom 1877 Drift from Two Shores 1878 An Heiress of Red Dog and Other Tales 1879 Flip and Found at Blazing Star 1882 By Shore and Sedge 1885 A Millionaire of Rough And Ready and Devil s Ford 1887 The Crusade of the Excelsior 1887 The Argonauts of North Liberty 1888 Cressy 1889 A First Family of Tasajara 1892 Colonel Starbottle s Client and some other people 1892 A Protegee of Jack Hamlin s and Other Stories 1894 Barker s Luck etc 1896 Tales of Trail and Town 1898 Stories in Light and Shadow 1898 Under the Red Woods 1901 Her Letter His Answer and Her Last Letter 39 1905 Dramatic and musical adaptations EditSeveral film versions of The Outcasts of Poker Flat have been made including one in 1937 with Preston Foster and another in 1952 with Dale Robertson Tennessee s Partner 1955 with John Payne and Ronald Reagan was based on the story of the same name Paddy Chayefsky s treatment of the film version of Paint Your Wagon seems to borrow from Tennessee s Partner two close friends one named Pardner share the same woman The Spaghetti Western Four of the Apocalypse is based on The Outcasts of Poker Flat and The Luck of Roaring Camp The Soviet movie Armed and Dangerous Russian Vooruzhyon i ochen opasen 1977 is based on Gabriel Conroy and another of Harte s stories Operas based on The Outcasts of Poker Flat include those by Samuel Adler 40 and by Stanford Beckler 41 The actor Craig Hill was cast as Harte in the 1956 episode Year of Destiny on the syndicated anthology series Death Valley Days hosted by Stanley Andrews The year of destiny is 1857 when Harte arrived in California First a stagecoach guard then a newspaper editor and schoolteacher he slowly finds fame as a western writer 42 Legacy EditBret Harte Memorial in San Francisco 43 There is a Bret Harte House School of Journalism Humboldt State University Arcata Ca citation needed Bret Harte California a census designated place CDP in Stanislaus County Twain Harte a CDP in Tuolumne County California named after both Mark Twain and Bret Harte The Mark Twain Bret Harte Historic Trail Marker Number 431 erected in 1948 by the California Centennial Commission also named after both writers 44 Bret Harte Village in the Gold River community of Sacramento County Sacramento California Bret Harte Court a street in Sacramento California Bret Harte Library a public library in Long Beach California Bret Harte Hall Roaring Camp Railroads Felton California Bret Harte High School in Angels Camp California is named after him Bret Harte Lane in Humboldt Hill California Bret Harte Elementary School in Chicago Illinois Bret Harte Preparatory Middle School Vermont Vista South Los Angeles California Bret Harte Middle School in San Jose California Bret Harte Middle School in Oakland California Bret Harte Middle School in Hayward California Bret Harte Elementary in Corcoran California Bret Harte Street in Baldwin New York Bret Harte Elementary in San Francisco California Bret Harte Elementary in Burbank California Bret Harte Elementary in Cherry Hill New Jersey Bret Harte Elementary in Sacramento California Bret Harte Elementary School in Modesto California 45 A community called The Shores of Poker Flat California claims to have been the location of Poker Flat although it is usually accepted that the story takes place further north citation needed Bret Harte Road in Frimley the town in which Harte was buried is named after him Bret Harte Place in San Francisco California is named after him Bret Harte Lane Bret Harte Road and Harte Ave in San Rafael California Bret Harte Terrace in San Francisco Bret Harte Road in Berkeley California Bret Harte Road in Redwood City California Bret Harte Road in Angels Camp California Bret Harte Road and Bret Harte Drive in Murphys California Bret Harte Avenue in Reno Nevada Bret Harte House at Humboldt State University in Arcata California Bret Harte Alley in Arcata California Bret Harte Park in Danville California In 1987 Harte appeared on a 5 U S Postage stamp as part of the Great Americans series of issues 46 References Edit Bret Harte Geni October 28 2018 Retrieved November 9 2020 Some sources say he was born in 1837 or 1839 Even his gravestone has the wrong year 1837 See also Bret Harte Birth Year Set as 1836 Berkeley Daily Gazette August 15 1936 Scharnhorst Gary Bret Harte Opening the American Literary West Norman OK University of Oklahoma Press 2000 3 ISBN 0 8061 3254 X Kanfer Stefan 1989 A Summer World New York Farrar Straus Giroux p 40 ISBN 978 0374271800 Bret HARTE Science amp Magnet Cluster School www harte cps edu Retrieved December 2 2022 Bret Harte Biography eNotes Retrieved March 16 2017 Merwin Henry Childs The Life of Bret Harte page 8 Autumn Musings is reported to have been published in the New York Sunday Atlas according to Theodore Bryant Kingsbury Vanity of Earthly Things Charlotte Observer North Carolina December 13 1903 p 14 The Atlas may have been one of the Albany newspapers using that title from 1843 to 1855 a b Scharnhorst Gary Bret Harte Opening the American Literary West Norman OK University of Oklahoma Press 2000 4 ISBN 0 8061 3254 X a b c d Chisholm Hugh ed 1911 Harte Francis Bret Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 13 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 31 32 Susie Baker Fountain Arcata Historian Humboldt Room HSU Library Special Collections Retrieved January 8 2023 Harte in Humboldt Humboldt County Historical Society Retrieved January 8 2023 Tarnoff Benjamin 2014 The Bohemians Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature Penguin Books ISBN 978 1594204739 Scharnhorst Gary Bret Harte Opening the American Literary West Norman OK University of Oklahoma Press 2000 6 ISBN 0 8061 3254 X Nissen Axel Bret Harte Prince and Pauper Jackson MS University Press of Mississippi 2000 48 49 ISBN 1 57806 253 5 a b c d e f Tarnoff Ben The Bohemians Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature New York The Penguin Press 2014 26 27 ISBN 978 1 59420 473 9 Tarnoff Ben The Bohemians Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature New York The Penguin Press 2014 28 ISBN 978 1 59420 473 9 Davies David Stuart 1998 Shadows of Sherlock Holmes p xvii Hertfordshire Wordsworth Editions ISBN 1 85326 744 9 a b Bret Harte Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved August 21 2017 Crandell PDF Archived from the original PDF on August 7 2007 Retrieved 2009 06 28 Gerten Jackson Carol John Pettie Portrait of Bret Harte CGFA Archived from the original on August 20 2006 Retrieved June 7 2006 Nissen Axel Bret Harte Prince and Pauper University Press of Mississippi 2000 64 ISBN 1 57806 253 5 Tarnoff Ben The Bohemians Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature New York The Penguin Press 2014 59 ISBN 978 1 59420 473 9 Tarnoff Ben The Bohemians Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature New York The Penguin Press 2014 149 ISBN 978 1 59420 473 9 Tarnoff Ben The Bohemians Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature New York The Penguin Press 2014 188 ISBN 978 1 59420 473 9 Scott David China and the International System 1840 1949 Power Presence and Perceptions in a Century of Humiliation Albany State University of New York Press 2008 60 61 ISBN 978 0 7914 7627 7 Scharnhorst Gary Bret Harte Opening the American Literary West Norman OK University of Oklahoma Press 2000 146 ISBN 0 8061 3254 X Scharnhorst Gary 2001 Introduction In Bret Harte The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Writings p xvi New York Penguin Books ISBN 0 14 043917 X Scharnhorst Gary Bret Harte Opening the American Literary West Norman OK University of Oklahoma Press 2000 133 ISBN 0 8061 3254 X Strathearn Nancy August 16 1990 National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Fosterfields Boundary Increase National Park Service With accompanying 28 photos The Project Gutenberg E text of Thankful Blossom by Bret Harte www gutenberg org Archived from the original on March 30 2022 Retrieved March 30 2022 Scharnhorst Gary Bret Harte Opening the American Literary West Norman OK University of Oklahoma Press 2000 139 ISBN 0 8061 3254 X Newburgh Daily Journal May 6 1902 Nissen Axel Bret Harte Prince and Pauper University Press of Mississippi 2000 243 244 ISBN 1 57806 253 5 Andrew Carnegie Round the World The Project Gutenberg EBook Archived February 9 2009 at the Wayback Machine From Sea to Sea Letters of Travel by Rudyard Kipling FROM SEA TO SEA No XXIII How I got to San Francisco and took Tea with the Natives there Project Gutenberg Krauth Leland Mark Twain amp Company Six Literary Relations University of Georgia Press 2003 23 ISBN 978 0820325408 Coates Frank January 1 1934 The early history of Tuolumne County California Theses and Dissertations University of the Pacific United States p 139 Retrieved January 8 2023 Harte Bret Keller Arthur I Illustrator 1905 Her Letter His Answer and Her Last Letter Houghton Mifflin amp Company The Database of Recorded American Music Archived from the original on May 18 2006 Retrieved August 9 2006 Organization Archived July 18 2006 at the Wayback Machine at pikappalambda capital edu Year of Destiny on Death Valley Days Internet Movie Database Retrieved October 30 2018 Bret Harte Memorial sculpture Save Outdoor Sculpture Smithsonian American Art Museum Retrieved May 9 2012 Mark Twain Bret Harte Historic Trail HMDB org Basic page Archived from the original on August 21 2014 Retrieved 2014 08 20 Scott catalog 2196 External links Edit Wikimedia Commons has media related to Bret Harte Wikiquote has quotations related to Bret Harte Wikisource has original works by or about Bret Harte Western American Literature Journal Bret Harte Brooks Noah September 1902 Bret Harte A Biographical And Critical Sketch Overland Monthly and Out West Magazine XL 3 201 207 Retrieved August 15 2009 Complete bibliography Online Bret Harte bibliography Bret Harte Etexts Works by Bret Harte at Project Gutenberg Works by Bret Harte at Faded Page Canada Works by or about Bret Harte at Internet Archive Works by Bret Harte at LibriVox public domain audiobooks Guide to the Bret Harte Collection at The Bancroft Library Bret Harte at IMDb Bret Harte letters collection at the Mortimer Rare Book Collection Smith College Special Collections Bret Harte letters and postal cover 1874 1986 California State Library California History Room Poems by Francis Bret Harte at English Poetry Research Encyclopedias Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Bret Harte amp oldid 1132282671, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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