It is now well-thumbed
literary history that _The Luck of Roaring Camp_ (August, 1868,
_Overland_) and _The Outcasts of Poker Flat_ (January, 1869,
_Overland_) brought him a popularity that, in its suddenness and
extent, had no precedent in American literature save in the case of
Mrs. Stowe and _Uncle Tom's Cabin_. According to Harte's own
statement, made in the retrospect of later years, he set out
deliberately to add a new province to American literature. Although
his work has been belittled because he has chosen exceptional and
theatric happenings, yet his real strength came from his contact with
Western life.
Irving and Dickens and other models served only to teach him his art.
"Finally," says Prof. Pattee, "Harte was the parent of the modern form
of the short story. It was he who started Kipling and Cable and Thomas
Nelson Page. Few indeed have surpassed him in the mechanics of this
most difficult of arts. According to his own belief, the form is an
American product ... Harte has described the genesis of his own art.
It sprang from the Western humor and was developed by the
circumstances that surrounded him.
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