SOURCE: "The Reign of Dialect," in The Development of the American Short Story: An Historical Survey, Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1923, pp. 268-90.

In the following excerpt, Pattee discusses Murfree's place in what he calls "the reign of dialect" during the 1880s and her influence on the subsequent generation of writers.

The final avalanche of [writing in] dialect which came with the 'eighties was precipitated by a curious bit of uncontracted-for advertising. In 1878 a story had come in to The Atlantic from the Southwest over the unheardof name of "Charles Egbert Craddock." There was dialect in the very title, "The Dancin' Party at Harrison's Cove," and large parts of it were told in an argot, a leisurely tedium of barbarous wordiness, strange to Northern readers.

Ef he don't want a bullet in that pumpkin head o' his'n he hed better keep away from that dancin' party what the Harrisons hev...