Ancestors
Gertrude Atherton
Jan 1908 · GoodBook Classics
Ebook
475
Pages
About this ebook
Gertrude Atherton took up writing after being widowed as a means to support herself and her daughter. She was considered a controversial novelist in many ways, and championed the expansion of a woman's place in the world.
Quotes from the book:
“Miss Thangue, who had never seen her friend's hand tremble among the teacups before, felt an edge on her mental appetite, stimulating after two monotonous years abroad. It was several minutes, however, before she made any effort to relieve her curiosity, for of all her patron-friends Victoria Gwynne required the most delicate touch.”
“The next day began the torrential rains that lasted for three weeks, almost without an hour's intermission; that wiped out the marsh, and threatened floods for all the valleys of the north.”
“It was a beautiful evening of perfect peace when the launch entered Rosewater creek. The marsh was bathed in all the faint colors of the afterglow. The birds were singing. People were sitting under the trees in their parks or gardens. A fisherman was sailing up to Rosewater with his catch. But for the red light in the south and the faint sound as of a besieging army, there was nothing to recall that a civilization had been arrested and a great city was burning down to its bones.”
Readers' reviews:
“Gertrude Atherton, one of the most famous, outspoken, and successful novelists of her time. It emphasizes her place in the emergent debate on the place of women in society and her friendships with such figures as Ambrose Bierce and Gertrude Stein.” (goodreads.com)
“I just finished reading this book and loved it. I bought my first copy at an antique store in Dutch Flat in California's Gold Country, not knowing anything about it or it's author. The little store has a wall of old original publication books and I asked the proprietor if he happened to have any by Georgette Heyer - he didn't but asked if I had read any Gertrude Atherton and suggested this. I am very glad he did!” (Karen B. - goodreads.com)
“The paradoxical, individualistic, self-reliant, controversial, sometimes despicable, American writer comes alive in this fascinating biography. Atherton (1857-1948), who lived to be 90, produced more than 50 books, as well as other writings. This biography includes the essence and background of these works, revealing Atherton's original ideas for them and her successes and failures as deemed by American and European societies. The most complete work on Atherton, this is a fascinating, worthwhile contribution to American literary history that is highly recommended for its thorough presentation of the writer as part of her literary, social, political, and cultural world.” (Library Journal)
Quotes from the book:
“Miss Thangue, who had never seen her friend's hand tremble among the teacups before, felt an edge on her mental appetite, stimulating after two monotonous years abroad. It was several minutes, however, before she made any effort to relieve her curiosity, for of all her patron-friends Victoria Gwynne required the most delicate touch.”
“The next day began the torrential rains that lasted for three weeks, almost without an hour's intermission; that wiped out the marsh, and threatened floods for all the valleys of the north.”
“It was a beautiful evening of perfect peace when the launch entered Rosewater creek. The marsh was bathed in all the faint colors of the afterglow. The birds were singing. People were sitting under the trees in their parks or gardens. A fisherman was sailing up to Rosewater with his catch. But for the red light in the south and the faint sound as of a besieging army, there was nothing to recall that a civilization had been arrested and a great city was burning down to its bones.”
Readers' reviews:
“Gertrude Atherton, one of the most famous, outspoken, and successful novelists of her time. It emphasizes her place in the emergent debate on the place of women in society and her friendships with such figures as Ambrose Bierce and Gertrude Stein.” (goodreads.com)
“I just finished reading this book and loved it. I bought my first copy at an antique store in Dutch Flat in California's Gold Country, not knowing anything about it or it's author. The little store has a wall of old original publication books and I asked the proprietor if he happened to have any by Georgette Heyer - he didn't but asked if I had read any Gertrude Atherton and suggested this. I am very glad he did!” (Karen B. - goodreads.com)
“The paradoxical, individualistic, self-reliant, controversial, sometimes despicable, American writer comes alive in this fascinating biography. Atherton (1857-1948), who lived to be 90, produced more than 50 books, as well as other writings. This biography includes the essence and background of these works, revealing Atherton's original ideas for them and her successes and failures as deemed by American and European societies. The most complete work on Atherton, this is a fascinating, worthwhile contribution to American literary history that is highly recommended for its thorough presentation of the writer as part of her literary, social, political, and cultural world.” (Library Journal)
About the author
Gertrude Horn grew up in a prosperous neighbourhood of her native San Francisco until her parents’ divorce and thereafter mainly on the San Jose ranch of her maternal grandfather, under whose stern discipline she was introduced to serious literature. She attended St. Mary’s Hall school in Benicia, California, and, for a year, Sayre Institute in Lexington, Kentucky. In February 1876 she eloped with George H.B. Atherton, who had been courting her now twice-divorced mother.
Her life at the Atherton estate, Fair Oaks (now Atherton), California, was an unhappy one dominated by her mother-in-law. Despite her husband’s attempts to stifle her, she managed to write a novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods; based on a local society scandal, its serial publication in the San Francisco Argonaut in 1882, though unsigned, outraged the family. (The novel was published in book form as A Daughter of the Vine in 1899.) The death of her husband in 1887 released her, and she promptly traveled to New York City and thence in 1895 to England and continental Europe. In rapid succession she produced books set in those locales or in old California, and the information she accumulated in her travels lent vividness to her writing. Her work generally drew mixed reviews, with the notable exception of The Conqueror (1902), a novelized account of the life of Alexander Hamilton. Atherton did extensive research for this book, and the result won her critical acclaim and made the book a best-seller. Her controversial novel Black Oxen (1923), the story of a woman revitalized by hormone treatments and based on Atherton’s own experience, was her biggest popular success.
Atherton wrote more than 40 novels in her long career, as well as many nonfiction works. Her work is uneven in quality, perhaps because of the rapidity with which she wrote, but at its best it displays strength and a talent for vivid description. Most of her novels featured strong-willed, independent heroines active in the world at large, and not infrequently their success stemmed from the characters’ frank pursuit of sexual as well as other pleasures. (britannica.com)
Her life at the Atherton estate, Fair Oaks (now Atherton), California, was an unhappy one dominated by her mother-in-law. Despite her husband’s attempts to stifle her, she managed to write a novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods; based on a local society scandal, its serial publication in the San Francisco Argonaut in 1882, though unsigned, outraged the family. (The novel was published in book form as A Daughter of the Vine in 1899.) The death of her husband in 1887 released her, and she promptly traveled to New York City and thence in 1895 to England and continental Europe. In rapid succession she produced books set in those locales or in old California, and the information she accumulated in her travels lent vividness to her writing. Her work generally drew mixed reviews, with the notable exception of The Conqueror (1902), a novelized account of the life of Alexander Hamilton. Atherton did extensive research for this book, and the result won her critical acclaim and made the book a best-seller. Her controversial novel Black Oxen (1923), the story of a woman revitalized by hormone treatments and based on Atherton’s own experience, was her biggest popular success.
Atherton wrote more than 40 novels in her long career, as well as many nonfiction works. Her work is uneven in quality, perhaps because of the rapidity with which she wrote, but at its best it displays strength and a talent for vivid description. Most of her novels featured strong-willed, independent heroines active in the world at large, and not infrequently their success stemmed from the characters’ frank pursuit of sexual as well as other pleasures. (britannica.com)
Her life at the Atherton estate, Fair Oaks (now Atherton), California, was an unhappy one dominated by her mother-in-law. Despite her husband’s attempts to stifle her, she managed to write a novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods; based on a local society scandal, its serial publication in the San Francisco Argonaut in 1882, though unsigned, outraged the family. (The novel was published in book form as A Daughter of the Vine in 1899.) The death of her husband in 1887 released her, and she promptly traveled to New York City and thence in 1895 to England and continental Europe. In rapid succession she produced books set in those locales or in old California, and the information she accumulated in her travels lent vividness to her writing. Her work generally drew mixed reviews, with the notable exception of The Conqueror (1902), a novelized account of the life of Alexander Hamilton. Atherton did extensive research for this book, and the result won her critical acclaim and made the book a best-seller. Her controversial novel Black Oxen (1923), the story of a woman revitalized by hormone treatments and based on Atherton’s own experience, was her biggest popular success.
Atherton wrote more than 40 novels in her long career, as well as many nonfiction works. Her work is uneven in quality, perhaps because of the rapidity with which she wrote, but at its best it displays strength and a talent for vivid description. Most of her novels featured strong-willed, independent heroines active in the world at large, and not infrequently their success stemmed from the characters’ frank pursuit of sexual as well as other pleasures. (britannica.com)
Her life at the Atherton estate, Fair Oaks (now Atherton), California, was an unhappy one dominated by her mother-in-law. Despite her husband’s attempts to stifle her, she managed to write a novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods; based on a local society scandal, its serial publication in the San Francisco Argonaut in 1882, though unsigned, outraged the family. (The novel was published in book form as A Daughter of the Vine in 1899.) The death of her husband in 1887 released her, and she promptly traveled to New York City and thence in 1895 to England and continental Europe. In rapid succession she produced books set in those locales or in old California, and the information she accumulated in her travels lent vividness to her writing. Her work generally drew mixed reviews, with the notable exception of The Conqueror (1902), a novelized account of the life of Alexander Hamilton. Atherton did extensive research for this book, and the result won her critical acclaim and made the book a best-seller. Her controversial novel Black Oxen (1923), the story of a woman revitalized by hormone treatments and based on Atherton’s own experience, was her biggest popular success.
Atherton wrote more than 40 novels in her long career, as well as many nonfiction works. Her work is uneven in quality, perhaps because of the rapidity with which she wrote, but at its best it displays strength and a talent for vivid description. Most of her novels featured strong-willed, independent heroines active in the world at large, and not infrequently their success stemmed from the characters’ frank pursuit of sexual as well as other pleasures. (britannica.com)
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