The Valiant Runaways

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

oct 2004 · 1st World Publishing

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Roldan Castanada walked excitedly up and down the verandah of his father's house, his thumbs thrust into the red silk sash that was knotted about his waist, his cambric shirt open at the throat as if pulled impatiently apart; the soft grey sombrero on the back of his curly head making a wide frame for his dark, flushed, scowling face. There was nothing in the surroundings to indicate the cause of his disturbance. The great adobe house, its white sides and red tiles glaring in the bright December sun, would have been as silent as a tomb but for the rapid tramping of Roldan and the clank of his silver spurs on the pavement. On all sides the vast Rancho Los Palos Verdes cleft the horizon: Don Mateo Castanada was one of the wealthiest grandees in the Californias, and his sons could gallop all day without crossing the boundary line of their future possessions. The rancho was as level as mid-ocean in a calm; here and there a wood or river broke the sweep; thousands of cattle grazed. Now and again a mounted vaquero, clad in small-clothes vivified with silver trimmings, dashed amongst tossing horns, shouting and warning.

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Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton was born in San Francisco, California, on October 30, 1857. After the divorce of her parents, Horn went to live on the San Jose ranch of her maternal grandfather, where she was introduced to literature. Atherton attended St. Mary's Hall school, and spent a year at the Sayre Institute in Lexington, Kentucky. In February of 1876 she eloped with George H.B. Atherton. Her life at the Atherton estate was an unhappy one. She managed to write a novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods, based on a local society scandal, which was published serially in the San Francisco Argonaut in 1882, and which outraged the family. In 1887, her husband died and Atherton was free to travel to New York City and then to England and continental Europe in 1895. She quickly produced books set in Europe or old California. Her work drew mixed reviews, with the exception of The Conqueror, published in 1902, an account of the life of Alexander Hamilton, which won her critical acclaim and became a best-seller. Her controversial novel Black Oxen, published in 1923, was based on Atherton's own experiences with hormone therapy, and was her biggest popular success. Atherton wrote more than 40 novels in her career, as well as many nonfiction works. Most of her novels feature strong-willed, independent heroines. Adventures of a Novelist, published in 1932 was an autobiography. Gertrude Atherton died in San Francisco on June 14, 1948.