Atherton, Gertrude
Entry updated 23 December 2024. Tagged: Author.

(1857-1948) US author, biographer and historian. In a long career that extended from 1882 to 1946 she published about 50 books in a multitude of genres, beginning to publish work of genre interest with "The Caves of Death" for San Francisco News Letter in 1886; her first novel was an occult romance involving metempsychosis, What Dreams May Come: A Romance (1888) as by Frank Lin (see Reincarnation). In The White Morning: A Novel of the Power of the German Women in Wartime (short version December 1917 McClure's: much exp, dated 1918 but 1917), which is set in the very Near Future, German women arrange a simultaneous behind-the-lines demolition of German war materiel, bring down the patriarchical monarchy, establish a left-wing government under the control of their female leader (see Feminism; Women in SF), and end World War One; this averts the suicidal consequences of a punitive settlement, in which "the conquerors ... would show no mercy." On that score, Atherton was tragically prescient. In Black Oxen (1923), a novel whose sexual implications caused a scandal, women (only) are rejuvenated by X-rays directed to the gonads (see Rejuvenation). Though her explicitness and exuberance would not be remarked upon today, she achieved some notoriety in her prime as a female writer who spoke of erotic matters; she was also a campaigning (though ambivalent) feminist. [JC]
Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
born San Francisco, California: 30 October 1857
died San Francisco, California: 14 June 1948
works
- What Dreams May Come: A Romance (Chicago, Illinois: Belford, Clarke and Company, 1888) as by Frank Lin [hb/]
- The Doomswoman: A Romance of Old California (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: J B Lippincott, 1892) [as special issue of Lippincott's Magazine: hb/]
- A Whirl Asunder (New York: Stokes, 1895) [hb/]
- The White Morning: A Novel of the Power of the German Women in Wartime (New York: Frederick A Stokes Company, 1917) [book is copyright 1918 but first published 21 December 1917: short version first appeared December 1917 McClure's: hb/Arnold Genthe]
- Black Oxen (New York: Boni and Liveright, 1923) [hb/]
- Dido, Queen of Hearts (New York: Horace Liveright, 1929) [hb/nonpictorial]
collections and stories
- The Bell in the Fog, and Other Stories (New York: Harper, 1905) [coll: hb/]
- The Foghorn (Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin, 1934) [coll: hb/]
- The Dead and the Countess: A Ghost Story for Christmas (Windsor, Ontario: Biblioasis, 2022) [story: chap: first appeared in The Bell in the Fog, and Other Stories (coll 1905): pb/]
links
- Gertrude Atherton
- Works by Gertrude Atherton
- Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- Project Gutenberg
- Picture Gallery
previous versions of this entry