Gertrude Franklin Atherton

Photo of Gertrude Franklin Atherton, originally published in 1905 Harper & Brothers edition of The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (Oct. 30, 1857 - June 14, 1948) was a writer even as a young woman. Her writing was discouraged by her husband, George Atherton; after he died in 1887 she pursued writing and was mentored by Ambrose Bierce. She had three children, one of whom died in childhood. She is most known for her historical works, particularly taking place in California, but wrote some works featuring supernatural or speculative elements.

Names

• Gertrude Franklin Atherton
• Frank Lin (pseudonym)

Bibliography

Gertrude Franklin Atherton was a prolific writer of more than 55 books, both fiction and histories, and many articles and short stories.

• "The Twins" (republished as "The Striding Place" in The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories)
• The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories (1905 collection)
  • "The Bell in the Fog" (1905) (supernatural)
  • "The Dead and the Countess"
  • "The Greatest Good of the Greatest Number"
• The White Morning (1918) (women's revolution)
• Black Oxen (1923) (woman regains her youth)
• The Foghorn (1934) (collection of short stories)
  • "The Foghorn" (1934)
  • "The Eternal Now"
  • "The Striding Place"

Non-SFnal works

• The Randolphs of Redwood (1882; published anonymously)
• Glimpses of Three Coasts (1886; also published not under her name)
• What Dreams May Come (1888; first signed novel, published under pseudonym Frank Lin)
• Cerritos (1890)
• "Death and the Woman" (1892; republished in The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories)
• The Doomswoman: An Historical Romance of Old California (1895; reprinted 1982)
• "The Striding Place" (1896; republished in The Bell in the Fog and Other Stories, 1905)
• Patience Starhawk (1897)
• A Daughter of the Vine (1899)
• Senator North (1900)
• American Wives and English Husbands: A Novel (1901)
• The Aristocrats (1901)
• The Conqueror (1902) (fictionalized biography of Alexander Hamilton)
• The Splendid, Idle Forties: Stories of Old California (1902) (collection of historical California stories)
• Mrs. Pendleton's Four-In-Hand (1903)
• Rulers of Kings (1904)
• The Travelling Thirds (1905)
• Rezánov (1906) (aka Rezanov)
• Ancestors (1907)
• Towers of Ivory (1910)
• Julia France and Her Times (1912) (suffragist novel)
• Perch of the Devil (1914)
• California: An Intimate History (1914)
• The Avalanche (1919? or 1914?)
• Before the Gringo Came (1915) (collection of short stories; same as The Splendid Idle Forties?)
• Mrs. Balfame (1916)
• The Living Present: French Women in WWI (1917)
• The Sisters-in-Law (1921)
• Sleeping Fires: A Novel (1922)
• The Crystal Cup (1925)
• The Gorgeous Isle (1927)
• The Immortal Marriage (1927)
• The Jealous Gods (1928)
• Dido, Queen of Hearts (1929)
• The Sophisticates (1931)
• Adventures of a Novelist (1932; autobiography)
• Golden Peacock (1936)
• California, an Intimate History (1936; nonfiction)
• Can Women Be Gentlemen? (1938; nonfiction)
• The House of Lee (1940)
• The Horn of Life (1942)
• Golden Gate Country (1945; nonfiction)
• My San Francisco: A Wayward Biography (1946; nonfiction)
• Californians (1968; nonfiction)
• The Valiant Runaways (?)

References

Introduction to Rezanov

INTRODUCTION

A long list of works Gertrude Atherton has to her credit as a writer. She is indisputably a woman of genius. Not that her genius is distinctively feminine, though she is in matters historical a passionate partisan. Most of the critics who approve her work agree that in the main she views life with somewhat of the masculine spirit of liberality. She is as much the realist as one can be who is saturated with the romance that is California, her birthplace and her home, if such a true cosmopolite as she can be said to have a home. In all she has written there is abounding life; her grasp of character is firm; her style has a warm, glowing plasticity, frequently a rhythm variously expressive of all the wide range of feeling which a writer must have to make his or her books living things. She does no less well in the depiction of men than in the portraiture of women. All stand out of their vivid environment distinctly and they are all personalities of power-- even, occasionally, of "that strong power called weakness." And they all wear something of a glory imparted to them by the sympathy of their creator and interpreter. High upon any roster of our best American writers we must enroll the name of Mrs. Atherton.

William Marion Reedy, Introduction to Rezanov (1906); published at http://worldwideschool.org/library/books/lit/drama/Rezanov/Chap0.html

More references

• Janice Albert, "Gertrude Atherton (1857-1948)" (http://www.cateweb.org/CA_Authors/Atherton.htm)
• Gertrude Franklin Atherton, Adventures of a Novelist (1932; autobiography)
• Henry James Forman, "A Brillian California Novelist: Gertrude Atherton", in California Historical Society Quarterly, n. 40, March 1961 (pp. 1-10)
• Carolyn D. Forrey, Gertrude Atherton and the New Woman (1971 dissertation)
• Emily Wortis Leider, California's Daughter: Gertrude Atherton and Her Times (Stanford University Press, 1993)
• Elinor Richey, "The Flappers Were Her Daughters: The Liberated Literary World of Gertrude Atherton" in American West, No. 11, July 1974, p.4
• John E. Van Domelen, "Gertrude Franklin Inscriptions," in American Notes and Queries, No. 10, Sept. 1971, p.7
• Jack G. Voller, "Gertrude Atherton." The Literary Gothic. 20 March 2005. 28 Feb. 2007. http://www.litgothic.com/Authors/atherton.html
• Sybil Weir, "Gertrude Atherton: The Limits of Feminism in the 1890s" in San Jose Studies, No. 1, Feb. 1975, pp. 24-31
• Sharon Yntema, More Than 100 Woman Science Fiction Writers (1988)