Frank Norris (1 book)

Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902) was an American novelist during the Progressive Era, writing under the name Frank Norris, predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901), and The Pit (1903).

McTeague tells the story of a couple's courtship and marriage, and their subsequent descent into… (more)

Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr. (March 5, 1870 – October 25, 1902) was an American novelist during the Progressive Era, writing under the name Frank Norris, predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901), and The Pit (1903).

McTeague tells the story of a couple's courtship and marriage, and their subsequent descent into poverty, violence and finally murder as the result of jealousy and avarice.

The Octopus depicts the tension between a corrupt railroad in California and the ranchers and the ranchers' League. The book emphasized the control of "forces" such as wheat and railroads over individuals.

The Pit is a story of wheat speculation and greed driving up the price of wheat at the Chicago Board of Trade, where commodities are traded like stocks and bonds. It was the second book in what was to be the trilogy The Epic of the Wheat, but Norris died before the third novel was completed.

Norris was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1870. His father, Benjamin, was a self-made Chicago businessman and his mother, Gertrude Glorvina Doggett, had a stage career. In 1884 the family moved to San Francisco where Benjamin went into real estate. In 1887, after the death of his brother and a brief stay in London, young Norris went to Académie Julian in Paris where he studied painting for two years and was exposed to the naturalist novels of Emile Zola. Between 1890 and 1894 he attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he picked up the ideas of human evolution of Darwin and Spencer that are reflected in his later writings.

Norris has been characterized by some critics as antisemitic based on some villains in his most successful novels. Although he did not openly support socialism as a political system, his work nevertheless showed a socialist mentality and influenced socialist/progressive writers such as Upton Sinclair.

Norris died on October 25, 1902, of peritonitis from a ruptured appendix in San Francisco at age 32. He is buried in Oakland, California.

(Reference: Wikipedia.)