This web page was pulled together for an American Literature Class by an undergraduate student at East Tennessee State University. I originally wanted to do a page on an author that I was familiar with, but instead my professor suggested Miss Murfree. I was not very excited, I had never even heard of the woman and I knew that it would require a lot of work To my surprise, the research was very interesting-- I hope you think so too!

R. Emmett Demby?

This writer was Mary Noailles Murfree, one of the foremost Southern local color writers of the late 19^th century. She was successful with several genres, including social protest, historical romance, dialect fiction, short stories, and novella. She needed no assistance in learning this trade, yet she encountered a type of prejudice which she overcame by taking male pseudonyms. Originally she submitted her work under R. Emmett Dembry, then Charles Egbert Craddock. It was not until 1884 when she earned national fame with her best-seller, In the Tennessee Mountains, winning even Theodore Roosevelt as a fan (Snodgrass 280), did she decide to reveal her identity to her publisher and begin to write under her real name.

As a young woman, she spent fifteen consecutive summers at her family's cottage in Bersheeba Springs in the Cumberland Mountains. This is where she observed the people who she later wrote about. She captured the scenery, dialect, lifestyles and controversies that took place in these mountains. She based most of her stories on these findings, and they were some of her greatest works. Eventually, she tried other settings and times, but these were never as popular.

Today, there is little to be heard of Mary Noailles Murfree. Present-day publishers judge her appeal to be limited, and college textbooks have deleted Murfree, finding her inferior to other local colorists (Ensor 337). The critical verdict of later years has been that, In the Tennessee Mountains, seen at the time as an indication of greater works to come, was in fact her best. Therefore it remains a representative of all Murfree's work.

Beginning at age 5, her family vacationed at this resort and Mary was able to observe these mountain people who were the main characters in most of her stories. Although she was born in Tennessee and spent a lot of her time in the mountains, her view of these people was considered to be superficial and that of an outsider. She was also slightly paralyzed as a result of a childhood fever, so this kept her from venturing far from the hotel to places where she might have come in contact with different types and classes of mountain people.

For years she wrote several stories that were published in newspapers and magazines. After eight mountain stories had appeared in the prestigious Atlantic Monthly, she decided it was time to issue them in book form. In April of 1884, she released In The Tennessee Mountains, which had a very favorable reaction. This book was the first of seven collections of short stories and eighteen novels.

Murfree used similar plots in all of her stories, with her characters having many common characteristics. Four of the plots she used consistently in her stories were: love interests between a mountain girl and an outsider or a fugitive from justice being wrongfully accused; the heroism of a young girl which is usually unappreciated; the commission of a crime and the attempts to apprehending the criminal; and supernatural manifestations turning out to have a natural explanation (Ensor 341).

In the story, "The Harnt' That Walks Chilhowee", all of these characteristics and plots are used together, very common with Murfree's work. The story is about a young, determined mountain girl named Clarsie Giles who overhears a conversation of a ghost that walks Chilhowee. Unable to sleep that night, she goes down to the crossing path in the road to see for herself if the widespread rumor is in fact true. She comes across what appears to be a ghost and he tells her to meet him at the same time tomorrow bringing some food with her. It turns out that this harnt' really is not a harnt' at all. It is a man who was falsely accused of a murder that he did not commit and now is running from the law. His brother who had helped him survive on the run had passed away and now he had no means of shelter or food.

Willing to risk a jail sentence out of kindness and compassion for a man in need, the young girl saves table scraps and gathers food to take to him the next morning. Carrying the pail of food down the road, she runs into a friend of the family who discourages her from doing this. But being a strong willed, stubborn girl, one of Murfree's typical heroines, she does it anyway against his wishes.

Knowing the man has been falsely accused, she persuades him to come out from hiding and stand trial. There had been a reward set for two hundred dollars for his capture, and she knew he could not keep running very long. He took her advice and was set free, no longer having to "walk Chilhowee".

With critics believing Murfree's view to be limited, there have not been many studies of her published. It has been speculated that her reputation would have been much higher had she stopped writing after her first few books. At first, her writings were enjoyed, calling attention to nature's beauty and interesting dialects. This was something that people had they not stopped to pay attention, could have missed. But after a while, the people that were drawn to Murfree's work lost interest because she continued to repeat these themes over and over, using no other styles and the same lengthy descriptions. Murfree realized this and tried many other themes, but was never as successful as she had been with her first book.

"The Harnt' That Walks Chilhowee has an outstanding example of the imagery that Murfree used as an eye opener for many who never appreciated a beautiful mountain of sunrise, or the change of the leaves come wintertime. This is what Clarsie Giles sees when she reaches the cross in the road where she is supposed to meet the harnt' with the pail of food.