however, till it appeared in the November and December,
1869, numbers of a Southern magazine, _The New Eclectic_, over the
pseudonym "Philemon Perch." His famous _Dukesborough Tales_
(1871-1874) was largely a republication of the earlier book. Other
noteworthy collections of his are: _Mr. Absalom Billingslea and Other
Georgia Folk_ (1888), _Mr. Fortner's Marital Claims, and Other
Stories_ (1892), and _Old Times in Middle Georgia_ (1897). Among
individual stories stand out: _The Organ-Grinder_ (July, 1870, _New
Eclectic_), _Mr. Neelus Peeler's Conditions_ (June, 1879, _Scribner's
Monthly_), _The Brief Embarrassment of Mr. Iverson Blount_ (September,
1884, _Century_); _The Hotel Experience of Mr. Pink Fluker_ (June,
1886, _Century_), republished in the present collection; _The Wimpy
Adoptions_ (February, 1887, _Century_), _The Experiments of Miss Sally
Cash_ (September, 1888, _Century_), and _Our Witch_ (March, 1897,
_Century_). Johnston must be ranked almost with Bret Harte as a
pioneer in "local color" work, although his work had little
recognition until his _Dukesborough Tales_ were republished by Harper
& Brothers in 1883.

Bret Harte (1839-1902) is mentioned here owing to the late date of his
story included in this volume, _Colonel Starbottle for the Plaintiff_
(March, 1901, _Harper's_), although his work as a whole of course
belongs to an earlier period of our literature. 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 We