SOURCE: "Western Literary Realism: The California Tales of Norris and Austin," in American Literary Realism, Vol. 7, No. 3, Summer, 1974, pp. 278-80.

In the following essay, Johnson discusses Western-themed stories by Norris and Mary Austin.

Frank Norris and Mary Austin are two Western writers whose accomplishments in short fiction have generally been neglected; critical attention has most frequently focused on their novels. Yet in studying the emergence of realism in Western literature, Norris' and Austin's tales should not be overlooked; their stories of California, in particular, achieve realism with subjects previously treated in romance.

These California tales derive from the first-hand experience of both authors. Each was born in Illinois, Austin being the older by two years, but each moved to California while in his teens: Norris to the bay area in 1884, Austin to the arid South in 1886. Both began publishing stories in 1892 based upon life in their new locale...