[7] But one story just before
Harte that astonished the fiction audience with its power and art was
Harriet Prescott Spofford's (1835- ) _The Amber Gods_ (January and
February, 1860, Atlantic), with its startling ending, "I must have
died at ten minutes past one." After Harte the next story to make a
great sensation was Thomas Bailey Aldrich's _Marjorie Daw_ (April,
1873, _Atlantic_), a story with a surprise at the end, as had been his
_A Struggle for Life_ (July, 1867, _Atlantic_), although it was only
_Marjorie Daw_ that attracted much attention at the time. Then came
George Washington Cable's (1844- ) _"Posson Jone',"_ (April 1, 1876,
_Appleton's Journal_) and a little later Charles Egbert Craddock's
(1850- ) _The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove_ (May, 1878,
_Atlantic_) and _The Star in the Valley_ (November, 1878, _Atlantic_).
But the work of Cable and Craddock, though of sterling worth, won its
way gradually. Even Edward Everett Hale's (1822-1909) _My Double; and
How He Undid Me_ (September, 1859, _Atlantic_) and _The Man Without a
Country_ (December, 1863, _Atlantic_) had fallen comparatively
still-born.
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