Bret Harte
Bret Harte | |
---|---|
Born | Francis Brett Hart August 25, 1836 Albany, New York |
Died | May 5, 1902 Camberley, England | (aged 65)
Occupation | Author |
Genre | Fiction, poetry |
Spouse | Anna Griswold (m. ca. 1862–1902; his death) |
Children | 4[1] |
Signature | |
Bret Harte (
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.[2]
Biography
Early life
Harte was born in 1836
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."[9]
His formal schooling[where?] ended when he was 13, in 1849.[10]
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
[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.[14]
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
Among Harte's first literary efforts was a poem published in The Golden Era in 1857[15] and, in October of that same year, his first prose piece on "A Trip Up the Coast".[16] In the spring of 1860 he was hired as editor of The Golden Era, which he attempted to make into a more literary publication.[17] 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".[18]
The
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]
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".[10]
The well-known minister
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.[17] 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.[17] While the book was widely praised in the East, many newspapers and poets in the West took umbrage at his remarks.[17]
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][11]
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.
Like Plain Language from Truthful James, Harte's 1874 short story Wan Lee, the Pagan also sought to undermine stereotypes about Chinese immigrants and to portray white Americans as the true savages.[28]: 24
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
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.[31] Harte's time in Morristown inspired him to write 1877 historical romance novel Thankful Blossom.[32]
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".[33] Eventually, Harte was given a similar role in Glasgow in 1880. In 1885 he settled in London.[11] 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. Among his writings of this time 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".[34]
He died in
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."[37]
Rudyard Kipling also showed himself to be an admirer of Harte's writing. In From Sea to Sea and Other Sketches, Letters of Travel,[38] 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".[39]
Selected works
- Outcroppings (1865), editor
- Condensed Novels and Other Papers (1867)
- Tennessee's Partner (short story; 1869)[40]
- 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[41] (1905)
Works of parody
Harte's short story collections Condensed Novels (1867) and Condensed Novels: Second Series New Burlesques (1902) are parodies of contemporaneous writers and novels.
Parody | Named author | Parodied author | Parodied novel | Remarks |
---|---|---|---|---|
Rupert the Resembler | A-th-y H-pe | Anthony Hope | The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau | |
The Stolen Cigar Case | A. Co—n D—le | Arthur Conan Doyle | Sherlock Holmes stories | |
Golly and the Christian or The Minx and the Manxman | H-ll C—ne | Hall Caine | The Christian and The Manxman | |
Dan'l Borem | E. N-s W-t-t | Edward Noyes Westcott | David Harum | |
Stories Three | R-dy-d K-pl-g | Rudyard Kipling | Soldiers Three | In the second story, "A Private's Honor", the three characters Mulledwiney, Bleareyed, and Otherwise parody Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris of Soldiers Three. The story title, "A Private's Honor", references "His Private Honour" of Many Inventions, another Learoyd, Mulvaney and Ortheris story. |
"Zut-Ski" The Problem of a Wicked Feme Sole | M-r-e C-r-lli | Marie Corelli | Ziska: The Problem of a Wicked Soul |
Dramatic and musical adaptations
- Several 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: Вооружён и очень опасен, 1977) is based on Gabriel Conroyand another of Harte's stories.
- Operas based on "The Outcasts of Poker Flat" include those by Samuel Adler[43] and by Stanford Beckler.[44]
- The 1889 short story Salomy Jane's Kiss and 1910 novel of the same name have been filmed many times:
- The actor 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.[45]
Legacy
- Bret Harte Memorial in San Francisco[46]
- There is a Bret Harte House at the Cal Poly Humboldt Journalism Department in Arcata, California[47]
- 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.[48]
- 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 (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[49]
- 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 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.[50]
References
- ^ "Bret Harte". Geni. October 28, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2020.
- ^ "American Passages: A Literary Survey".
- ^ 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
- ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
- ISBN 978-0374271800.
- ^ "Bret HARTE Science & Magnet Cluster School". www.harte.cps.edu. Archived from the original on December 2, 2022. 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.
- ^ ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
- ^ a b c Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 13 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 31–32.
- ^ "Susie Baker Fountain: Arcata Historian". Humboldt Room - HSU Library Special Collections. Archived from the original on January 8, 2023. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
- ^ "Harte in Humboldt". Humboldt County Historical Society. April 29, 2022. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
- ISBN 978-1594204739.
- ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
- ISBN 1-57806-253-5
- ^ ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
- ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
- ^ a b "Bret Harte". Encyclopædia 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.
- ISBN 1-57806-253-5
- ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
- ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
- ISBN 978-1-59420-473-9
- ISBN 978-0-7914-7627-7
- ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
- ^ ISBN 978-1-350-23394-2.
- ISBN 0-14-043917-X.
- 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.
- ISBN 0-8061-3254-X
- ISBN 1-85326-744-9.
- ^ Newburgh Daily Journal, May 6, 1902.
- 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
- ISBN 978-0820325408
- ^ Coates, Frank (January 1, 1934). "The early history of Tuolumne County, California". University of the Pacific Theses and Dissertations. University of the Pacific (United States): 139. Retrieved January 8, 2023.
- ^ Harte, Bret; Keller, Arthur I. [Illustrator] (1905). Her Letter, His Answer, and Her Last Letter. Houghton, Mifflin & Company.
- ^ Boyd, Belle; Hardinge, Sam Wilde (1865). Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison. Saunders, Otley, and Company. p. 38.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "Journalism & Mass Communication". journalism.humboldt.edu. Retrieved July 17, 2023.
- ^ "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.
The Outcasts of Poker Flat
External links
- 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[permanent dead link]