Gertrude Atherton (1857–1948)
Author of The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories
About the Author
Image credit: Courtesy of the NYPL Digital Gallery
(image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
(image use requires permission from the New York Public Library)
Works by Gertrude Atherton
The Aristocrats: Being the Impressions of the Lady Helen Pole during Her Sojourn in the Great North Woods as… (1901) 10 copies
The Jealous Gods: A Processional Novel of the Fifth Century, B.C. (Concerning One Alcibiades) (1928) 5 copies
The Travelling Thirds 3 copies
The Horn of Life 3 copies
The Foghorn [short story] 3 copies
A Whirl Asunder 3 copies
A Few of Hamilton's Letters: Including His Description of the Great West Indian Hurricane of 1772 (1903) — Editor — 2 copies
Collected Stories (HTML only) 2 copies
The Bell In The Fog [short story] 2 copies
His Fortunate Grace 2 copies
Before the Gringo Came 1 copy
Life in the War Zone 1 copy
Hermia Suydam 1 copy
JEALOUS GODS, The a Processional Novel of the Fifth Century B. C.(Concerning One Alcibiades) (1928) 1 copy
The Pearls of Loreto 1 copy
Golden Peacock 1 copy
Associated Works
American Fantastic Tales: Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps (2009) — Contributor — 264 copies
The Lifted Veil: The Book of Fantastic Literature by Women 1800-World War II (1806) — Contributor — 42 copies
Weird Women: Volume 2: 1840-1925: Classic Supernatural Fiction by Groundbreaking Female Writers (2) (2021) — Contributor — 28 copies
Haunted Women: The Best Supernatural Tales by American Women Writers (1985) — Contributor — 15 copies
The Best Short Stories of 1916 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (1916) — Contributor — 10 copies
San Francisco, 1906 and Before: Memories of the Older City's Splendor (1973) — Contributor — 2 copies
Eleven American Stories — Contributor — 1 copy
LibriVox Short Ghost and Horror Collection 035 — Contributor — 1 copy
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Atherton, Gertrude
- Legal name
- Atherton, Gertrude Franklin Horn
- Birthdate
- 1857-10-30
- Date of death
- 1948-06-14
- Burial location
- Cypress Lawn Memorial Park, Colma, California, USA
- Gender
- female
- Nationality
- USA
- Birthplace
- San Francisco, California, USA
- Place of death
- San Francisco, California, USA
- Places of residence
- San Francisco, California, USA
San Jose, California, USA - Occupations
- freelance writer
historian
novelist
autobiographer
short story writer
feminist - Organizations
- American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature ∙ 1938)
San Francisco PEN - Short biography
- Gertrude Atherton, née Gertrude Franklin Horn, was born in San Francisco, California. Her parents separated when she was two years old and she was raised by her maternal grandfather, Stephen Franklin, a relative of Benjamin Franklin, on his ranch near San Jose. She went to high school at St. Mary's Hall in Benicia, California, and briefly attended the Sayre School in Lexington, Kentucky. In 1876, after returning from Kentucky, she met and eloped with George H.B. Atherton, who had been courting her divorced mother. She went to live with him on his estate at Fair Oaks, California (now the town of Atherton), where she began writing, despite his opposition. Her first novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods, was published under a pseudonym in serial form in the San Francisco Argonaut in 1882, and later appeared in book form as A Daughter of the Vine (1899.) In 1887, her husband died at sea, leaving Gertrude free but with a daughter to support. She traveled to New York City and then to England and Europe, producing more than 40 novels in rapid succession. Many of them featured strong heroines and dealt with feminist issues. Her works included The Conqueror (1902), a fictionalized biography of Alexander Hamilton, and her biggest success, the semi-autobiographical Black Oxen (1923). It was adapted into a silent film. She also wrote numerous popular books on the history and culture of Spanish California as well as freelance articles for The New York World, book reviews for Vanity Fair, and short stories. She wrote several stories of supernatural horror, including the often-anthologized "The Striding Place." She also wrote two volumes of memoir/autobiography, Adventures of a Novelist (1932) and My San Francisco: A Wayward Biography (1946).
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Statistics
- Works
- 71
- Also by
- 40
- Members
- 668
- Popularity
- #37,771
- Rating
- 3.7
- Reviews
- 14
- ISBNs
- 240
- Languages
- 2