Bret Harte: The Rise and Fall of an American Literary Pioneer

Literary Discovery of the American West. More than any other writer, Bret Harte discovered the literary possibilities of the American West, and he worked his claim with varying degrees of success over a period of 40 years. As founding editor of the Overland Monthly (1868–70), he was also instrumental in sponsoring the careers of an entire generation of western writers, including Charles Warren Stoddard, Joaquin Miller, Prentice Mulford, Ina Coolbrith, and Ambrose Bierce. His sometimes friend Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) once acknowledged in a letter to Thomas Bailey Aldrich that Harte "trimmed and trained and schooled me patiently until he changed me from an awkward utterer of coarse grotesquenesses to a writer of paragraphs and chapters that have found a certain favor." A pioneer in western local color, Harte earned a national reputation early in his career with a series of eight stories and a few poems set in the mining camps and boomtowns of gold rush California and published in the Overland.

His sometimes friend Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens) once acknowledged in a letter to Thomas Bailey Aldrich that Harte "trimmed and trained and schooled me patiently until he changed me from an awkward utterer of coarse grotesquenesses to a writer of paragraphs and chapters that have found a certain favor." A pioneer in western local color, Harte earned a national reputation early in his career with a series of eight stories and a few poems set in the mining camps and boomtowns of gold rush California and published in the Overland. Lured east by the promise of fame and fortune in February 1871, he signed the most lucrative contract in the history of American publishing to that date—$10,000 for 12 months—to contribute exclusively to the Fields, Osgood & Co. family of magazines.

A prototype of the man of letters as a man of business, Harte learned through painful experience how to trade on his name. Though he soon fell from the first rank of American writers, he enjoyed a long and lucrative career as a magazine writer and editor until his death.

Early Life and Literary Apprenticeship. Born in Albany, New York Harte was educated in small upstate academies. In 1849, at the age of 13, he worked as a clerk in New York City, where as a member of a local militia he helped to quell the Astor Place riots. In 1854, in company with an older sister, he sailed for San Francisco and settled with his mother and her second husband in Oakland, California. He opened a small school in Tuolumne County, which failed for lack of students in spring 1855, whereupon he spent a few weeks at placer mining with little success.

Over the next five years he worked as a Wells Fargo agent, a druggist's clerk, a tutor in Humboldt County, and a printer's devil for the weekly Northern Californian newspaper. Early in 1860, temporarily in charge of the paper, Harte wrote an editorial critical of an American Indian massacre near Eureka. The ensuing outrage among local residents forced him to flee to San Francisco a few days later. He seriously aspired to a literary career from the age of 23.

Since 1857 he had contributed occasionally to the Golden Era, a weekly San Francisco literary paper, and within a week of his arrival he joined the staff of the paper as a compositor and columnist. His writings in the Golden Era caught the attention of Jessie Benton Frémont, who invited Harte to her Sunday salon; introduced him to such local celebrities as Thomas Starr King, minister of the First Unitarian Church in San Francisco; and found sinecures for him in the offices of the U.S. Surveyor General, the U.S. Marshal, and the U.S. Mint.

Marriage and Eastern Ambitions. Harte married Anna Griswold, a contralto in the choir at King's Church, in August 1862, and with the help of Frémont and King he placed his first story in the Atlantic Monthly, "The Legend of Monte del Diablo," in October 1863. The following spring he cofounded the weekly Californian, and in December 1865 his first book, an anthology of California poetry entitled Outcroppings, was published to mixed reviews. During the mid-1860s Harte also wrote a series of so-called condensed novels, short parodies of novels by James Fenimore Cooper, Wilkie Collins, Charles Dickens, Victor Hugo, and Charlotte Brontë, to great acclaim.

He collected these pieces in a volume published in New York in 1867. He also became the California correspondent to two Massachusetts papers, the Springfield Republican and the Boston Christian Register, the weekly paper of New England Unitarianism. In the 39 articles he contributed to these papers, Harte often criticized the residents, the political corruption, even the landscape of California. He wanted to resettle in the East, where his literary ambitions were more likely to be realized.

The Overland Monthly and Rise to Fame. Nevertheless, he agreed to edit the Overland Monthly when it was established in 1868 by the San Francisco bookseller Anton Roman. For a modest salary, about $100 per issue, Harte selected the contents, reviewed books, and contributed an occasional story or poem. Harte and Roman had very different designs for the magazine, however. Harte planned to assemble a first-class literary monthly, if possible; Roman thought the Overland should "serve to advertise the economic future of the West Coast."

In the short run Harte prevailed. The magazine was a popular success if not from the first issue in June 1868 then from its second, which featured Harte's "The Luck of Roaring Camp." The story was hailed by reviewers in both the New York Nation and the Springfield Republican, and James Fields solicited similar stories for the Atlantic. Kate Chopin later wrote that the story "reached across the continent and started the Academists on the Atlantic Coast." By July 1870 the Overland sold as many copies in the East as in the western states of California, Oregon, and Nevada.

The success of "The Luck" enabled Harte to write fiction and poetry for the Overland without any interference from the counting room. But, he was no literary realist: He depicted the West through a filtered lens and in soft light, and his stock characters—dandy gamblers, rough miners, whores with hearts of gold, genteel schoolmarms, gruff stage drivers—rarely transcend the stereotypical. Despite the critical and commercial success of the Overland, Harte quarreled with John Carmany, who had bought the magazine from Roman in 1869.

Meanwhile, Harte was courted by several rival publications, among them the Galaxy, the New-York Tribune, Putnam's, and the Lakeside Monthly in Chicago. To entice him to remain in San Francisco, he was offered a professorship in modern literature at the new University of California at Berkeley, but he spurned the job. He resigned from the Overland after editing its first five semiannual volumes and moved east. So widely reported in the press were his movements across the continent that William Dean Howells later compared the trip to "the progress of a prince" in the "universal attention and interest" it attracted.

Contractual Obligations and Eastern Reception. In Boston in early March Harte agreed to contribute no fewer than 12 poems and stories during the next year to the Atlantic Monthly and Every Saturday. The publishers, Fields, Osgood & Co., needed a marquee name to attract subscribers back to the Atlantic, in particular after the controversial publication in the magazine of Harriet Beecher Stowe's "The True Story of Lady Byron's Life" in September 1869. Technically, Harte fulfilled his obligations under the terms of the contract, submitting 14 pieces during the year, even sending the publishers two extra poems two years after the contract had lapsed.

But, the quality of these pieces was decidedly inferior to that of the best of his work for the Overland. According to a joke popular at the time, Harte reversed the path of the Sun, rising in glory in the west and setting in darkness in the east. Notoriously poor at paying his bills, he also racked up huge debts after leaving California.

Career Decline and Diplomatic Service. As his writing career spiraled downward between 1872 and 1875, he tried to capitalize on his waning popularity by delivering his lecture "The Argonauts of '49" dozens of times in cities across New England and eastern Canada to the Deep South and as far west as Omaha. Within the space of two years Harte went from the highest-paid writer in America to an impoverished freelance contributor to Sunday newspapers. Undaunted, he contracted to write a play for the comic actor Stuart Robson in spring 1875.

The following September he estimated that a performance of the completed draft of the farce Two Men of Sandy Bar would last more than four hours. Predictably, the play was panned when it was produced in Chicago and New York in summer and fall 1876. The New York Times, for example, concluded that Harte had not written a script but a "nondescript." The New York Herald compared the play to a dime novel struck by lightning. Ah Sin, the play Harte wrote in collaboration with Twain the following year, fared no better. To the end of his life he was haunted by memories of the hardscrabble winter of 1877–78, when he and his family lived literally hand to mouth.

Finally, partly through the intervention of Howells, Harte was offered a diplomatic appointment to the U.S. Commercial Agency in Crefeld, Germany. He sailed for Europe in June 1878, never to return to the United States. Though he would support his wife, Anna, until his death, he would not see her again for more than 20 years. After two years in Crefeld he was reassigned to the U.S. Consulate in Glasgow. In both offices he entrusted most of the work to his vice-consuls. In 1885, after a change of administrations in Washington, D.C., Harte was summarily dismissed from the consular service for neglect of duties. James G. Blaine, the secretary of state, remarked in 1889 that he had been "the worst consul" on record.

Literary Agency and Final Years. Fortunately, Harte had hired a literary agent, A. P. Watt of London, in 1884. In the end Harte became the writer the literary market made him. For a small percentage Watt adroitly managed his career for the next 18 years by selling his stories to the highest bidder, arranging for favorable publicity, and sometimes advancing him money. Watt peddled Harte's tales by the column inch to the newspaper syndicates that solicited them.

As a result, Harte increased his productivity, often writing 1,000 words per day. He published a book of new fiction every year from 1883 until his death, by far the majority of the 23 volumes of his collected works. He wrote on average about 100,000 words and earned about $10,000 per year during the final decade of his life. To be sure, his fiction was more popular in England and in translation on the Continent than in the United States. As Wallace Stegner later observed, Harte was always more popular among readers the greater their distance from California. But, as his friend Henry Adams also noted, Harte to his credit insisted on "the power of sex" in his late stories "as far as the magazines would let him venture."

Even late in his career he repeatedly tried his hand at playwriting in a vain attempt to escape from the magazine grind. Between 1882 and 1897 he wrote (often with a collaborator) 11 plays and two librettos. Only one of these plays was professionally produced, however. Based on his tale "The Judgment of Bolinas Plain" (1894), Sue, written with his friend T. Edgar Pemberton, was staged in New York and London in 1896 and 1898 with the American actress Annie Russell in the title role. But, the play earned Harte and Pemberton almost no money.

Several of Harte's final stories (for example, "The Convalescence of Jack Hamlin") betray his worries about his failing health. When Hamlin Garland visited him in London in May 1899, Harte was "affable and polite" but looked "old and burnt out, his eyes clouded, his skin red and flabby," as Garland confided to his diary. A lifelong smoker, Harte died of throat cancer at the home of his "hostess, friend, collaborator, and mistress Mademoiselle Van de Velde in Surrey in May 1902.

Since his death, especially since the advent of the New Criticism, his reputation has declined precipitously. Bernard De Voto expressed a consensus view in 1932 by dismissing him as "a literary charlatan whose tales have greatly pleased the second-rate." But, at his best Harte was a delightful satirist, a critic of sham sentiment, and an elegant stylist. His disappearance from standard contemporary anthologies of American literature speaks more to the shifting tides of academic fashion than to the merits of his best writing.

Bret Harte’s "The Luck of Roaring Camp" (1868): Analysis

Biblical Parody and Narrative Framing in Harte's Masterpiece. Bret Harte contributed his unsigned short story "The Luck of Roaring Camp" (August 1868) to the second issue of the Overland Monthly, presenting a work often interpreted as a modern retelling of the Gospel account of the Nativity. In this symbolic framework, "the Luck" serves as a type of Christ, while the mining settlement functions as a "city of refuge"—a biblical reference to historical asylums designated for accidental killers during the period of Mosaic dispensation—that undergoes gradual redemption through the infant's influence. The character Cherokee Sal, identified as the sole female and village prostitute, dies during childbirth (termed "the primal curse") with the paternity of the child remaining unconfirmed, after which she is buried in a "rude sepulture". The orphaned infant, "swathed in staring red flannel" and nourished on ass milk, is adopted collectively by approximately one hundred gold miners, including individuals such as Kentuck, Stumpy, Jack Hamlin, and French Pete. These inhabitants—many of whom are criminals, fugitives from justice, or generally "reckless"—decide against hiring a nurse, reasoning that no respectable woman would settle in Roaring Camp and asserting "they didn’t want any more of the other kind," an attitude described as their "first spasm of propriety" and the "first symptom of the camp’s regeneration".

The miners formally christen the child Tommy (Thomas), choosing a name reminiscent of the doubting apostle, after which "almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement" as the community adopts "stricter habits of personal cleanliness" and improves their physical environment. The local expressman, acting as the sole external visitor allowed into the camp, observes that the miners now cultivate "vines and flowers round their houses," "wash themselves twice a day," and effectively "worship an Ingin baby". However, this period of social transformation ends abruptly when a spring flood of biblical proportions destroys the settlement, resulting in the drowning of young Tommy Luck.

Irony, Satire, and the Anti-Nativity Reading. Critical Analysis of Subversive Themes. Rather than serving as a purely sentimental revision of the Nativity, the narrative humorously evokes the birth of Christ to articulate a sharp satirical critique. Harte cautions readers in his opening paragraphs against evaluating characters strictly by outward appearances, noting that the "greatest scamp" possessed a "Raphael face," the "coolest and most courageous man was scarcely over five feet in height," the "strongest man had but three fingers on his right hand," and the "best shot had but one eye". Within this inverted framework, Cherokee Sal functions as an ironic anti-Madonna—a "very sinful woman" described as "dissolute, abandoned, and irreclaimable"—whose child's paternity remains unknown without implying a virgin birth. Similarly, the miners act as ironic Magi, presenting the child with atypical gifts such as stolen silverware, "a gold specimen," "a gold spur," a tobacco box, and a silver-plated revolver.

The formal christening occurs at a "mock altar" during a "ludicrous" ceremony that explicitly burlesques traditional religious services, framing Tommy Luck not as a true incarnation of Christ, but as a false messiah. Although the child thrives in the "invigorating climate of the mountain camp" during a prosperous "golden summer" where mines "yield enormously" and the "Luck was with them," the structural achievements of this civic improvement program remain limited. The net primary developments consist of remodeling the local saloon ("Tuttle’s grocery"), establishing personal hygiene practices, curbing profanity, and enforcing silence so that the "shouting and yelling which had gained the camp its infelicitous title were not permitted within hearing distance" of the cabin. Possessing an "infantine gravity" and a "contemplative light in his round gray eye," the child appears to converse with nature in a manner comparable to the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas, embodying the concept of a romantic natural child whose "nurse and playfellow" is nature itself:

For him she would let slip between the leaves golden shafts of sunlight that fell just within his grasp; she would send wandering breezes to visit him with the balm of bay and resinous gums; to him the tall redwoods nodded familiarly and sleepily, the bumble-bees buzzed, and the rooks cawed a slumberous accompaniment.

Literary Reception, Publication History, and Legacy. Critical Debates and Commercial Impact. Subsequent literary evaluations, particularly by 20th-century New Critics, disparaged Harte's romanticized depiction of nature as a classic example of the "pathetic fallacy". Although "Nature took the foundling to her broader breast," the catastrophic flood that destroys Roaring Camp in the winter of 1851 operates as an unsparing reversal, resembling an arbitrary act or divine judgment. Harte details how "every mountain creek became a river and ever river a lake," transforming gorges into torrential watercourses that uprooted trees and scattered debris. Following the destruction, Kentuck and the deceased body of the child are recovered two miles downriver, where the final lines depict Kentuck clinging to the babe as he "drift[s] away into the shadowy river that flows forever to the unknown sea". Rather than validating martyrdom or self-sacrifice, these descriptions emphasize the randomness of fate in an unguided universe, positioning the narrative as a subtle biblical parody.

The publication process of the story was marked by significant controversy that nearly prevented its appearance in print. The original proofreader expressed strong objections to the portrayal of Cherokee Sal and the inclusion of profane miner dialogue (such as "the d——d little cuss"), prompting concerns from the printer and publisher Anton Roman, who requested an alternative submission. Supported by his wife Anna, Harte insisted on printing the narrative without alterations or emendations as a condition of his continued editorship of the Overland Monthly. While initial local press reviews and religious publications responded with hostility—some encouraging advertisers to withdraw financial support—eastern literary figures widely praised the work:

· Editor Samuel Bowles of the Springfield Republican lauded the work as "a genuine California story" that was "so true to nature and so deep-reaching in its humor, that it will move the hearts of men everywhere," reprinting it in its entirety.

· The New York Nation characterized the piece as "one of the best magazine articles that we have read in many months," praising its balance of "pathos and humor".

· Author Mark Twain, writing for the Buffalo Express, designated it as "the best prose magazine article that has seen the light for many months on either side of the ocean".

· James Fields, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, extended an open invitation to publish Harte's future writings under highly favorable terms.

Following these endorsements, the San Francisco Bulletin noted in 1870 that the work was recognized as the "most original story of the year," prompting Harte to observe in 1894 that "since Boston endorsed the story, San Francisco was properly proud of it". In 1882, Harte collaborated on a theatrical adaptation intended for producers such as Augustin Daly, Charles Frohman, Dion Boucicault, David Belasco, and John L. Toole, modifying the infant character into a female child; however, the play was never produced on stage.

For Discussion or Writing
1st question: How realistic is a story such as "The Luck of Roaring Camp"? Do the details about the mining camp seem authentic?
2nd question: Define the pathetic fallacy and identify passages in "The Luck of Roaring Camp" that express it. Compare Harte's treatment of nature with Stephen Crane's in The Red Badge of Courage.

Redemption and Tragedy in Bret Harte's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat"

Historical Context and Narrative Genesis. The ensemble of characters in "The Outcasts of Poker Flat," first published in the Overland magazine in January 1869, invokes the blind chance and freak disaster that befell the Donner Party in the mountains near Reno during the winter of 1846-47. Set in late November 1850, merely two years after the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill near Sacramento, the story opens with a tableau of the "pastoral village of Poker Flat," an outpost of civilization jealous of its dignity. The local economy is not based on mining, as in Roaring Camp, but on gambling, and the settlement has just begun to assume "Sabbath" airs.

The Expatriation of the Unfortunates. The settlement's newfound moral strictness leads to the banishment of several individuals, including John Oakhurst, the chief outcast, who is expelled not for gambling itself but because he is too successful a gambler. Oakhurst accepts his sentence "with philosophic calmness," acknowledging the "usual percentage in favor of the dealer" (Luck, 28). Despite his acceptance, he is driven out by the local vigilante committee, "forbidden to return at the peril of their lives" (28), along with the Duchess, Mother Shipton, and the thief and drunkard Uncle Billy. The group heads toward Sandy Bar, a day's journey away, a trek that Oakhurst undertakes with a stoic demeanor.

The Journey, the Blizzard, and Moral Transformation. Though Oakhurst does not drink, his companions do, and "they were furnished with liquor," leaving Uncle Billy in a stupor and the women maudlin. In the "steep mountain range" halfway between the two towns, the outcasts meet young Tom Simson (referred to as "The Innocent") and the sylvan "damsel" Piney Woods, who have eloped. Oakhurst urges them to hurry on to Poker Flat, but he and Piney plan to wed, and the Innocent offers to share his provisions and camp with them overnight. By morning, the group has been trapped by a blizzard—all except the devilish Uncle Billy, who has skipped out with the mules and horses, leaving them stranded.

Starvation, Redemption, and the Final Tragedy. Trapped in a cabin with deep snow, the characters face a grim reality, and although they have provisions for only ten days, Oakhurst, the Duchess, and Mother Shipton understand that they are doomed. The Innocent and his fiancée fail to understand the gravity of their plight or the character of their associates, but in a state of nature, the outcasts are reformed, and sinful and become virtuously indistinguishable. The Duchess blushes at Piney's remark that she must be "used to fine things," while Oakhurst maintains his composure, and they join the Innocent and Piney in a "rude camp-meeting hymn" to await the end. As the snow piles higher, Oakhurst settles himself calmly to lose a game, while Mother Shipton gives her entire ration of food to Piney before starving to death, and Tom Simson sets off on snowshoes to find help.

The Aftermath and Critical Reception. Oakhurst, cutting wood for the cabin, prepares for his final act by writing a note and then committing suicide, while the women die peacefully in each other's arms. The narrator notes that one "could hardly have told from the equal peace that dwelt upon them which was she that had sinned" (36). The outcasts are regenerated in death, but like Tommy Luck and the miners of Roaring Camp, they die as the result of natural disaster, rendering their reformation meaningless. William Dean Howells considered "The Outcasts" the "most representative" of Harte's "most characteristic" work, reprinting it in his 1920 edition of Great American Short Stories.

Adaptations and Pedagogical Applications. The story was parodied by Frank Norris in "The Hero of Tomato Can" (1897) and adapted to film three times: a silent version in 1919 directed by John Ford, and talkies in 1937 and 1952, the latter starring Dale Robertson and Anne Baxter. A standard entry in American literature anthologies between the 1920s and the 1980s, it has also been translated into no fewer than 12 languages. For further study, the following discussion questions are provided:

For Discussion or Writing.
1. In this story, is life in the West presented as harsh and unforgiving, or is the West presented as an opportunity to discover interior resources of spiritual and moral strength?
2. Examine Harte's depiction of dying in the story. How do the deaths of the Duchess and Piney differ from the death of Little Eva in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin? Why does the gambler Oakhurst kill himself?

Bret Harte's "Miggles" (1869): Biblical Allusion and Gender Satire

Biblical Parallelism and Literary Origins in Harte's Frontier Narrative. Bret Harte published his short story "Miggles" in the Overland Monthly in June 1869, drawing inspiration from both scriptural allegory and contemporary historical figures. The characterization is loosely modeled on the post-stage career of actress and dancer Lola Montez following her 1853 retirement from San Francisco theater. Literary critic William Dean Howells later categorized the protagonist as one of "the edifying Magdalenes of the mining camps," reflecting the narrative's central motif of spiritual redemption. The plot follows a stagecoach diverted during a storm to a remote cabin inhabited by Miggles, a "bright-eyed, full-throated young woman" whom the narrator designates as "our rock of refuge"—an explicit allusion to Psalms 71:3 ("Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may always go").

Prior to her life in the California wilderness, Miggles operated a saloon, brothel, and dance hall in Marysville, acknowledging that "everybody knew me there, and everybody had the right to know me" in the biblical sense of sexual intimacy. Six years prior to the events of the story, she liquidated her business to care for her companion Jim (also known as James, a name linked in oral tradition to the brother of Jesus and one of his disciples), a syphilitic invalid who is "prematurely old and wrinkled". Despite Jim's irreversible condition, Miggles rejects abandonment, choosing devotion over her past life of popularity and material comfort among wealthy patrons. Her path toward atonement culminates in a scene where moonlight "seemed to baptize with a shining flood the lowly head of the woman whose hair, as in the sweet old story," echoes the biblical account in Luke 7:36–50 of Mary Magdalene bathing Christ's feet.

Gender Inversion and Social Commentary in "Miggles". Subversion of Traditional Patriarchal Constructs. Beyond its theological undertones, "Miggles" stands out in Bret Harte's literary canon for its sharp satire of traditional gender roles and nineteenth-century social conventions. Featuring a protagonist with a sexually ambiguous name, the narrative presents a clear role reversal by depicting an economically self-sufficient woman who assumes the role of protector over a incapacitated male companion. The cohabitation of Miggles and Jim exists outside formal marriage, rooted instead in autonomous agency and mutual affection. As Miggles clarifies to her guests, "If we were man and wife, now, we'd both know that I was bound to do what I do now of my own accord," highlighting her rejection of legally enforced domestic duty.

Her uninhibited speech, marked by expletives and candid expressions, further defies the expected social etiquette of the era. The narrator notes that "her very frankness suggested a perfect sexual equality that was cruelly humiliating to the younger members of our party," contrasting her composure with the behavior of the stranded male passengers. When isolated, the men adopt traits traditionally assigned to women in period literature, "whispering, snickering, smiling, and exchanging suspicions, surmises, and a thousand speculations" regarding the nature of her household. Through this contrast, Miggles emerges as a dignified, sympathetic figure compared to the gossip-driven observers around her. Reflecting its progressive commentary, the story was reprinted in 1870 by the Boston Woman's Journal, a leading publication in the American women's suffrage movement.

For Discussion or Writing
1st question: What biblical allusions do you detect in "Miggles"? How do these influence your understanding of the story?
2nd question: In what ways does this story encourage readers to distinguish between gender and sexual identity?