The Devil and Dame Chance: The Life and Writings of Walter Blackburn Harte

Abstract

In September 1890, the New England Magazine of Boston featured an article entitled "Some Canadian Writers of To-Day." The author, Walter Blackburn Harte, had recently emerged on the American literary scene as a reporter and interpreter of Canadian subjects: his pieces on "The Canadian Legisla- ture" and "Social Life at Ottawa" were the lead articles in The Cosmopolitan of New York for April and August 1889; his series on Canadian politics and culture for the New England had begun in December 1889 with "Intellectual Life and Literature in Canada." The work of this previously unknown author was soon a topic of considerable interest in Canadian literary circles. Bliss Carman, who was on the staff of the New York magazine The Independent in 1890, wrote a brief but enthusiastic notice of Harte's article, as well as a personal letter of praise to Harte, and exchanged letters on Harte's view of Canadian literature with Archibald Lampman.1 In the Toronto Globe column of 1892-93, "At the Mermaid Inn," both Lampman and Wilfred Campbell paid tribute to Harte's recent achievements in magazine writing. "Mr. Harte," Campbell declared, "is rapidly making for himself a continental reputation as an able and strong writer of an aggressive character, and his truthful unveiling of humbug is making its influence felt in more than one quarter."2