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Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (October 30, 1857 – June 14, 1948) was an American writer.
Biography
A native Californian, Atherton was born in San Francisco and died there, but traveled extensively and lived abroad at times in furtherance of her writing career. She eloped with George H.B. Atherton when she was only 19, and had two children. Her husband discouraged her writing; and the serial publication of her first novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods (1882), though unsigned, scandalized her family.
After her husband's death, in 1887, she was free to pursue her writing career as a protégée of Ambrose Bierce, eventually writing 60 books and numerous articles and short stories. Atherton's first signed novel, What Dreams May Come, was published in 1888 under the pseudonym Frank Lin.
She is best remembered for her "California Series," several novels and short stories dealing with the social history of California. The series includes The Splendid, Idle Forties (1902); The Conqueror (1902), which is a fictionalized biography of Alexander Hamilton; and her sensational, semi-autobiographical novel Black Oxen (1923), about a middle-aged woman who miraculously becomes young again after glandular therapy. The latter was made into a silent movie in 1923.
Her novels often feature strong heroines who pursue independent lives, undoubtedly a reaction to her stifling married life. "The Foghorn," written in 1933, is a psychological horror story that has been compared to The Yellow Wallpaper.
Bibliography
- Hermia Suydam (1889)
- What Dreams May Come (1889)
- Los Cerritos (1890)
- A Questions of Time (1891)
- The Doomswoman (1893)
- Before the Gringo Came (1894)
- A Whirl Asunder (1895)
- His Fortunate Grace (1897)
- Patience Sparhawk and Her Times (1897)
- American Wives and English Husbands (1898)
- The Californian (1898)
- The Valiant Runaways (1898)
- The Aristocrats (1901)
- The Splendid Idle Forties: Stories of Old California (1902)
- Mrs. Pendleton's Four-in-Hand (1903)
- Senator North (1903)
- Rulers of Kings (1904)
- The Bell in the Fog, and Other Stories (1905)
- The Travelling Thirds (1905)
- Rezanov (1906)
- Ancestors (1907)
- The Gorgeous Isle (1908)
- Tower of Ivory (1910)
- Julia France and Her Times (1912)
- Perch of the Devil (1914)
- Life in the War Zone (1916)
- Mrs. Belfame (1916)
- The Living Present (1917) - Book I: French Women in Wartime; Book II: Feminism in Peace and War
- The White Morning: a Novel of the Power of the German Women in Wartime (1918)
- The Avalanche: A Mystery Story (1919)
- The Sisters-in-Law: A Novel of Our Times (1921)
- Sleeping Fires (1922)
- Black Oxen (1923)
- A Daughter of the Vine (1923)
- The Crystal Cup (1925)
- Dido: Queen of Hearts (1929)
- The Sophisticates (1931)
- Adventures of a Novelist (1932)
- The Foghorn: Stories (1934)
- California: An Intimate History (1936)
- Golden Peacock (1936)
- The Immortal Marriage (1937)
- Can Women Be Gentlemen (1938)
- The House of Lee (1940)
- The Horn of Life (1942)
- The Conqueror (1943)
- Golden Gate Country (1945)
- My San Francisco (1946)
Sources
External links
Referenced By
List of novelists by country: United States | List of novelists from the United States | List of people by name: At
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