Frank Norris
March 5, 1870 -
October 25, 1902
Frank Norris was an American novelist during the Progressive
Era, and was the United States'
first important naturalist writer. Like many of his contemporaries, he
was profoundly influenced by discussions of Darwinism. Through many of
his novels runs the notion of the civilized man overcoming his inner
"brute”.
Frank Norris was born in Chicago, and
moved to San Francisco
at the age of fourteen. He later became a member of San Francisco's
artistic Bohemian Club, which included such literary notables as Jack
London and Ambrose Bierce. He studied painting in Paris
for two years, where he was exposed to the naturalist novels of Emile
Zola. He attended the University of California,
Berkeley
and then spent a year at Harvard
University.
He worked as an editorial assistant on the San Francisco Wave
(1896–97). He worked for McClure's Magazine as a war
correspondent in Cuba
during the Spanish-American war in 1898. He joined the New York City
publishing firm of Doubleday & Page in 1899.
In 1900
Frank Norris married Jeanette Black. They had a child in 1901. Norris
died in 1902 of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix, leaving his young
wife and baby and leaving The Epic of Wheat trilogy unfinished.
He was only 32. He is buried in Mountain View Cemetery
in Oakland, California.
