Watch out when you're getting all you want. Fattening hogs ain't in luck.

Mencken held a less than favorable view of Harris:

"Once upon a time a Georgian printed a couple of books that attracted notice but immediately it turned out that he was little more than an amanuensis for the local blacks--that his works were really the products not of white Georgia but of black Georgia. "

Keith Cartwright however asserts "Harris might arguably be called the greatest single authorial force behind the literary development of African American folk matter and manner.

Grady (1880-1889) stressing regional and racial reconciliation after the Reconstruction era. Harris was born in Eatonton Georgia where he served as an apprentice on a plantation during his teenage years.