Frank Norris

Frank Norris (1870 - 1902) American Novelist

Benjamin Franklin Norris was born on March 5, 1870 in Chicago, Illinois. He studied painting in Paris for two years, attended the University of California in 1890-94 and then spent another year at Harvard University. He was a news correspondent in South Africa in 1895, an editorial assistant on the San Francisco Wave (1896-97), and a war correspondent in Cuba for McClure's Magazine in 1898. He joined the New York City publishing firm of Doubleday & Page in 1899.

Norris was the United States first important naturalist writer.

Bibliography

• McTeague (1899) - a naturalist work set in San Francisco. A dentist murders his wife and then dies while excaping through Death Valley. McTeague was filmed as 'Greed' by Erich von Stroheim in 1924.
• The Octopus (1901) - the first novel of a projected trilogy, The Epic of the Wheat. The Octopus descibes the raising of wheat in

California and the copnflict between the wheat growers and a railway company.

• The Pit (1903) - the second novel in the trilogy, about wheat speculation on the Chicago Board of Trade.

The third novel, Wolf, was never written but was to have shown the American-grown wheat relieving a famine-stricken village in Europe.

• Vandover and the Brute (posthumously published 1914) - a study of degeneration.

On October 25, 1902, Norris died after an operation for appendicitis.

External Links

e-texts of some of Frank Norris's works:

• Blix
• McTeague
• Moran Of the Lady Letty
• The Octopus
• The Pit