The Short Fiction of Catherine Crowe: "The Bear Steak"

By Tim Prasil on July 16, 2024

Around 1845, Catherine Crowe's short fiction began to appear with her name in the byline (as opposed to being published anonymously). She was identified as "Mrs. Crowe," but one might wonder if the success of her novels Susan Hopley, Or, The Adventures of a Maid Servant (1841) and Men and Women; Or, Manorial Rights (1843) -- both originally published anonymously while The Story of Lilly Dawson (1847) bears her name -- had a hand in making her authorship worth noting.

I've had to rely on Crowe's two collections of short fiction, Light and Darkness; Or, The Mysteries of Life (1850) and The Story of Arthur Hunter and His First Shilling: With Other Tales (1861) to confirm that many of her early works were indeed hers. I did not have to do this with "The Bear Steak" (1845), since her name is on it -- and I couldn't have, since it appears not to have been reprinted in her lifetime.

In other words, "The Bear Steak" debuted as Crowe was a risen and recognizable star in the British literary sky.

Yet it's a fairly minor work. "The Bear Steak" is a light piece of dark comedy that illustrates how our enjoyment of a meal isn't entirely dependent on its taste. A tourist in Switzerland agrees to sample a slice of bear and winds up loving it -- at first.

I tried another mouthful as big as the first. 'Indeed,' said I, 'it's delicious! I never could have believed it.'

However, that tourist promptly learns that, in the effort to kill the bear, one hunter was left a "shapeless mass of bones and flesh." His head gone missing. Presumably eaten. Suddenly, the meal doesn't sit so well in the tourist's stomach, and off he runs. There it ends. Sometimes you eat the bear, but sometimes the bear you're eating partially devoured someone else. Forgive the strained pun, I very much admire Crowe's grisly sense of humor here.

From Phillis Browne's Field Friends and Forest Foes (1877)

As I delve into Crowe's short fiction, I'm enjoying how much she's defying my expectations and proving to be a far more versatile writer than The Night Side of Nature (1848) and Ghosts and Family Legends (1859) might lead one to believe. She wasn't confined by supernatural, crime, or even domestic-drama subjects, and I wonder if short stories afforded her room to stretch her talents a bit more than her novels and other books did.