The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature

Abstract

Ernest Hemingway famously claimed that all of American literature came from Huckleberry Finn, but Ben Tarnoff goes back two decades to argue, as his subtitle suggests, that Mark Twain, along with three other writers, reinvented American literature during the Bohemian San Francisco literary scene of the 1860s. While the claim might be hyperbolic, especially since two of the writers are minor figures and the third declined in influence during his own time, Tarnoff has written an enjoyable, readable, and thoroughly researched book for a general audience that will also interest academic readers.Besides Mark Twain, the other three writers are Bret Harte, Charles Warren Stoddard, and Ina Coolbrith. Bret Harte is a familiar figure in American humor studies, and his friendship, collaboration, and ultimate falling out with Mark Twain have been treated fully elsewhere. Charles Warren Stoddard achieved minor fame as a poet and nonfiction writer and is familiar in Mark Twain studies as his traveling companion and secretary during an 1873 trip to England. Ina Coolbrith was a minor poet, even in her limited sphere. Much of Tarnoff's argument, then, depends on Mark Twain, and while Mark Twain is certainly the center, all the writers play a part.The book is divided into three main sections: “Pioneers,” “Bonanza and Bust,” and “Exile.” The first chapters introduce the central characters: the story of Sam Clemens/Mark Twain in Nevada, then his first visit to San Francisco in 1863; Bret Harte working at the U.S. Mint and writing for the Golden Era; Ina Coolbrith, a poet, but also a schoolteacher, who had the responsibility of caring for her ailing mother; and Charles Warren Stoddard, youngest of the group, an aspiring gay poet in an era when sexual orientation had to be kept hidden. The story traces Mark Twain's work as San Francisco correspondent for the Morning Call, then as a writer for the Golden Era. Bret Harte achieves the first national success with publication in the Atlantic Monthly. Mark Twain and Bret Harte are the twin polar stars of the narrative: colleagues, friends, collaborators, and eventually enemies, at least from Mark Twain's perspective. Like polar stars, they are seemingly on opposite sides of the wheel of fortune—Harte ascends, Mark Twain descends, then the reverse. Harte rises as he cofounds in 1864 with Charles Henry Webb a literary weekly, The Californian. Mark Twain comes back to San Francisco and falls on the hardest times of his young career, helped somewhat by writing for Harte's publication.In the “Bonanza and Bust” section, the heart of the book, Mark Twain achieves national acclaim with “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” while Harte's collection of California poets (including Coolbrith and Stoddard) is blasted by local critics. Tarnoff asserts that Mark Twain's story changed the course of American literature, bringing the fresh spirit of the Far West to American writing. Mark Twain's visit to Hawai'i and his subsequent triumph as a lecturer in San Francisco and Nevada follow, leading to the publication of his first book and the Quaker City cruise in 1867. In 1868, Harte started the Overland Monthly, a far western counterpart to the Atlantic Monthly. In its second issue, he published “The Luck of Roaring Camp,” which became a national sensation. Stoddard, Coolbrith, and Mark Twain wrote for the new literary magazine—Mark Twain's contribution being an excerpt from The Innocents Abroad (1869), partly as a repayment to Harte for his help editing the Quaker City letters into a book. Tarnoff ties the recently completed Transcontinental Railroad to the enhanced national importance of San Francisco—economic, of course, but also literary and cultural.1870 brought Harte's “The Heathen Chinee,” which introduced the character Ah Sin. Harte was on the ascent: the Atlantic tried to lure him east with an offer of $5,000 per year to write for them, which eventually became the unheard of sum of $10,000 annually. Mark Twain watched his friend with silent envy and competition. Although he struggled to follow up his blockbuster first travel book, he eventually triumphed with Roughing It (1872). Harte began his decline, as he found himself unable to write, unable to fulfill the generous Atlantic contract. Stoddard and Coolbrith were left behind in San Francisco; then Stoddard departed for the South Seas, where he found sexual freedom among the natives, as well as renewed literary inspiration. Abandoning poetry, he began publishing prose accounts of his travels, achieving a measure of national fame in the pages of the Atlantic, with pieces accepted and praised by William Dean Howells.As the 1870s progressed, Mark Twain's fortunes soared while Harte's soured. Harte visited Mark Twain in Hartford, seeking financial help. The pair collaborated on the play Ah Sin (1877), with modest success. Harte's drunkenness and his insults of Olivia Clemens ended their collaboration and friendship. Bret Harte was to become one of the recipients of Mark Twain's bitter enmity.In a short ending section, “Afterlife,” Tarnoff wraps up the story of each writer. Harte went abroad to represent U.S. interests in Germany, a political appointment Mark Twain tried to scuttle. Stoddard traveled the world aimlessly. Coolbrith took a job as a librarian in Oakland where she became a beloved figure and where she encouraged a young Oakland boy, Jack London. Her story clearly demonstrates the difficulties women had in balancing literary aspirations with domestic duties. Mark Twain had settled in his mansion in Hartford and went on to achieve even greater fame. The Bohemian scene Tarnoff outlines dissipated, but it proved a lasting legacy for Mark Twain, and thus for American literature.The Mark Twain story in The Bohemians is familiar, but it is told well, made somewhat new by seeing it in the context of his San Francisco colleagues. Bret Harte provides a counterpoint, and their polar relationship fuels the narrative, with Stoddard and Coolbrith as minor but interesting figures woven into the larger story. Tarnoff's writing is clean and engaging, and although written for a general rather than an academic audience, his fifty pages of notes show evidence of careful research. He deals with American humor through Mark Twain and Bret Harte, and while humor is not the primary focus, the book will still be of some interest to humor scholars. If his claim of this period reinventing American literature is a bit overblown, Tarnoff is convincing in his claim of the San Francisco Bohemian scene's importance to Mark Twain's development as a writer.