_Mrs. Burton N. Harrison._--Mrs. Burton Harrison (born Constance Cary, at Vaucluse, Virginia, in 1846) has written interesting and highly realistic novels of New York City life, full of local colour and effective in background; and some novels of Virginia life. Mr. Harrison, to whom she was married in 1867, had been private secretary to President Jefferson Davis of the Confederacy. The couple soon removed to New York, which has since been their permanent home. Mrs. Harrison’s first venture in literature was “A Little Centennial Lady” (_Scribner’s Monthly_, July, 1876), a sprightly historical sketch. Her novels dealing with Northern society are “Golden Rod” (1878), “Helen Troy” (1881), “The Anglomaniacs” (1890), “Sweet Bells out of Tune” (1893), “A Bachelor Maid” (1894), “An Errant Wooing” (1895), “Good Americans” (1897), “A Triple Entanglement” (1897), “The Carcelline Emerald” (1899), and “The Circle of a Century.” Perhaps the chief excellence of these stories is the dialogue, in the management of which Mrs. Harrison shows great skill. Although the attitude of the author is that of a satirist, her laughter at the foibles of society is not unkindly. Of Virginia she has written “Crow’s Nest and Bellhaven Tales” (1892) and “A Son of the Old Dominion” (1897), which deals with pre-Revolutionary times. “A Daughter of the South” (1892) is an exquisitely told story of New Orleans Creole life thrown into the environment of Paris under the Second Empire.
_Charles Egbert Craddock._--Charles Egbert Craddock is the pen name of Mary Noailles Murfree (born in 1850), who contributed to _The Atlantic_ for several years before it was suspected that her stories were written by a woman. She is the daughter of a once prominent lawyer of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, who in 1883 removed to St. Louis. Because of an accident, Miss Murfree was for several years unable to walk. She was a diligent student and somehow gained an intimate knowledge of the mountaineers of Eastern Tennessee, who figure in all of her stories. Her first story of any importance was “The Dancin’ Party at Harrison’s Cove” (_The Atlantic_, May, 1878). It was largely due to Mr. Aldrich’s urgent representations that her first collection of stories, “In the Tennessee Mountains,” found a publisher (1884). Of this a writer in _The Nation_ said, with justice: “We have not only one mountain valley, but a whole country of hills--not a man and a woman here and there, but the people of a whole district--not merely a day of winter or of summer, but all the year--not lives, but life.” This is substantially true of all her works, in which she described prosaic and pathetic mountaineer life, being always inspired, however, by the solitude and grandeur of the Great Smoky Mountains. The list of her works is a long one: “Where the Battle was Fought” (1884); “Down the Ravine” (1885); “The Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains” (1885), which recounts the history of “a Bunyan worsted by his doubts”; “In the Clouds” (1887), a tragic story likewise dealing with religious experiences; “The Story of Keedon Bluffs” (1887); “The Despot of Broomsedge Cove” (1889), the plot of which hinges on a mysterious murder; “In the Stranger People’s Country” (1891); “His Vanished Star” (1894); “The Mystery of Witch-Face Mountain, and Other Stories” (1895); “The Juggler” (1897); “The Young Mountaineers” (1897), short stories; “The Champion” (1902); “A Spectre of Power” (1903), which is laid in the year 1763 and is full of Indian love; “The Frontiersmen” (1904); and “The Storm Centre” (1905). Her later work suffers from repetition of certain mannerisms and from excessive attention to description; possibly also from too rapid production. On the whole, however, in her ability to present the pathos and tragedy of simple lives, Miss Murfree has a place of honour among present-day writers.