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Frank Norris was born in Chicago, Illinois on 5 March 1870. His mother Gertrude Doggett was an actress, his father Benjamin Franklin Norris a wealthy jeweler. He studied art in Paris before attending the University of California at Berkeley (1890-1894) where he began his short but highly successful and prolific literary career. In 1900 he married Jeannette Norris Black.

A man of contrasts, born in the East, Norris would soon adopt the West as his spiritual home, a member of the Bohemian Club of San Francisco during the days of the Gold Rush. He avidly studied Emile Zola and Edgar Allan Poe, experimenting with poetry, short stories and essays. After having to leave school due to lack of funds when his parents divorced, in 1895 the San Francisco Chronicle sent him to South Africa to write on the Boer conflict. Journalism would be his mainstay while he attempted to have his novels published. He joined the staff of The Wave upon his return, submitting numerous detailed interviews from Polk Street citizens, which furthered the acclaim he received for his in-depth depictions of the underclasses. The Wave also serialised his romance, Moran of the Lady Letty (1898).

Biography:

McClure's sent him to Cuba next for reportage, while he continued to work on his novels. His grasp of the American West is captured in many of his short stories and novels including The Octopus (1901). Frank Norris died in San Francisco on 25 October 1902 after an attack of appendicitis. He lies buried in the Mountain View Cemetery of Oakland, Alameda County, California. The Pit (1903) and Vandover the Brute (1914) were published posthumously.

Frank was able to travel early in life. When he was just eight years old the Norris family toured Europe and spent the winter in Brighton, England. In 1881 Frank's brother, Charles Gilman Norris, was born. He would follow in Frank's footsteps and also become a novelist. Shortly after Charles's birth the Norris family moved to a highly respectable mansion on Michigan Avenue. The family then later moved into the even more impressive Henry Scott mansion in San Francisco. That same year Frank was sent to Belmont, California. In Belmont he attended a boys preparatory school, however it was not what he had hoped. While playing football there he broke his arm and dropped out of the school. He was directed by his father to attend Boy's High School to prepare for a career in business, but this was also not to his liking. Following his interest in art and dropping school once again Frank was finally permitted to enter the San Francisco Art Association.

In June of 1887 Frank's brother Lester died suddenly of diphtheria. At the time of the death Frank Norris Sr. had already taken the advice of a co-worker and made plans to send his son abroad to study. His family would leave California and join Norris for the trip to London. However, the they found London's schools unsatisfying and prompted a move to Paris (French 23). In Paris, Frank enrolled in the Bouguereau Studio of Julien Atelier to study painting. In 1889 Frank's interest in art declined. He gave up on art altogether and returned to California. It was in California that he published his first article "Clothes of Steel" in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Frank attended the University of California, Berkeley in 1890 and enrolled as a student of limited status. He stayed at the school for four years without receiving a degree. He took no courses in mathematics and focused mainly on English and French. According to Ernest Marchand, Frank took only classes that came easily to him and even then performed poorly. Frank did write for a campus humor magazine labeled Smiles, but it was short-lived. Frank's parents divorced in 1884, but the effect that it had on him is unknown. The divorce could very likely correspond with his struggles in college. One changing aspect of his years at college came when Frank joined the fraternity Phi Gamma Delta. Phi Gamma Delta became an asset to his education and noticeably changed his writing confidence. This can be seen in his earlier novels.

Frank would spend a year at Harvard and meet a professor that would change his perspective of writing. Frank was inspired under the teaching of Lewis Gates. He would turn in pieces of his works weekly. Frank would spend a year at Harvard and meet a professor that would change his perspective of writing. Frank was inspired under the teaching of Lewis Gates. He would turn in pieces of his works weekly. In 1895 Norris traveled to Africa for a journey that would allegedly lead him across the country, from Cape Town to Cairo. His journey was cut short when he became involved in the Jameson Raid. Shortly after the raid he caught South African Fever. He left the country and returned to San Francisco. He spent six weeks in recuperation.

Back in San Francisco, Norris became sub-editor and correspondent of the Wave. It is also in San Francisco that Frank meets Jeanette Black, his future wife. In 1897 Frank left his job at the Wave to complete McTeague. He attempted this and collected material for short stories at the Big Dipper Mine near Colfax, California. The following year Norris began to serialize Moran and the Lady Letty for the Wave. It caught the attention of S. S. McClure of McClure's Magazine and in February of 1898 Frank moved to New York to start working. He made $12.50 a week writing for McClure's Magazine. During the next few months his new job would introduce him to William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, Richard Harding Davis, and Frederick Remington.

McTeague was published in February of 1899 and Blix followed shortly after. Frank returned to California to research for The Octopus. That year he would also become a reader for Doubleday, Page and Company. The new income and quick pace of his writing career would permit him to marry Jeanette Black on January 12, 1900. They first lived on Washington Square until October when they moved into a cottage in Roselle, New Jersey (French 29). At Doubleday, Frank would force the publication of Theodore Dreiser's novel Sister Carrie. Frank completed The Octopus and left with Jeanette for Chicago. There he gathered information for The Pit. On February 9, 1902 Jeanette Norris Jr. was born. Frank and Jeanette moved the family to San Francisco and made plans to make a trip around the world. Before they could set off, Jeanette became ill with appendicitis and had an appendix operation. Frank Norris died of the same affliction on October 25, 1902.

Career

Frank Norris's work often includes depictions of suffering caused by corrupt and greedy turn-of-the-century corporate monopolies. In The Octopus: A California Story, the Pacific and Southwest Railroad is implicated in the suffering and deaths of a number of ranchers in Southern California. At the end of the novel, after a bloody shootout between farmers and railroad agents at one of the ranches (named Los Muertos), readers are encouraged to take a "larger view" that sees that "through the welter of blood at the irrigating ditch ... the great harvest of Los Muertos rolled like a flood from the Sierras to the Himalayas to feed thousands of starving scarecrows on the barren plains of India". Though free-wheeling market capitalism causes the deaths of many of the characters in the novel, this "larger view always ... discovers the Truth that will, in the end, prevail, and all things, surely, inevitably, resistlessly work together for good".

The novel Vandover and the Brute, written in the 1890s, but not published until after his death, is about three college friends preparing to become successful, and the ruin of one due to a degenerate lifestyle.

In addition to Zola's, Norris's writing has been compared to that of Stephen Crane, Theodore Dreiser, and Edith Wharton.

Works

Fiction

(1892). Yvernelle. Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company.

(1898). Moran of the "Lady Letty": A Story of Adventure Off the California Coast. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.

(1899). McTeague: A Story of San Francisco. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.

(1899). Blix. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.

(1900). A Man's Woman. New York: Doubleday & McClure Co.

(1901). The Octopus: A Story of California. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.

(1903). The Pit: A Story of Chicago. New York: Doubleday, Page & Co.

(1903). A Deal in Wheat and Other Stories of the New and Old West.New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.

(1906). A Joyous Miracle. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.

(1909). The Third Circle. New York: John Lane Company.

(1914). Vandover and the Brute. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.^[32]

(1931). Frank Norris of "The Wave." Stories & Sketches From the San Francisco Weekly, 1893 to 1897. San Francisco: The Westgate Press.

(1998). The Best Short Stories of Frank Norris. New York: Ironweed Press Inc.

Short Stories

(1907). "A Lost Story." In: The Spinners' Book of Fiction. San Francisco and New York: Paul Elder and Company.

(1909). "The Passing of Cock-Eye Blacklock." In: California Story Book. San Francisco: Pub. by the English Club of the University of California.

(1910). "San Francisco's Old Chinatown." In: Pathway to Western Literature. Stockton, Cal.: Nettie E. Gaines.

Non-fiction

(1903). The Responsibilities of the Novelist. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company.

(1986). Frank Norris: Collected Letters. San Francisco: The Book Club of California.

(1996). The Apprenticeship Writings of Frank Norris 1896–1898. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society.

Selected articles

"The True Reward of the Novelist," The World's Work, Vol. II, May/October 1901.

"Mr. Kipling's Kim," The World's Work, Vol. II, May/October 1901 (unsigned)

"The Need of a Literary Conscience," The World's Work, Vol. III, November 1901/April 1902.

"The Frontier Gone at Last," The World's Work, Vol. III, November 1901/April 1902.

"The Novel with a 'Purpose'," The World's Work, Vol. IV, May/October 1902.

"A Neglected Epic," The World's Work, Vol. V, November 1902/April 1903.

"Fifi," by Léon Faran, The Wave, Vol. XVI, No. 4, January 23, 1897.

"Not Guilty," by Marcel l'Heureux, The Wave, Vol. XVI, No. 25, June 19, 1897.

"Story of a Wall," by Pierre Loti, The Wave, Vol. XVI, No. 35, August 28, 1897.

"An Elopement," by Ferdinand Bloch, The Wave, Vol. XVI, No. 52, December 25, 1897.

Collected works

The Complete Works of Frank Norris. New York: P.F. Collier Sons Publishers, 1898–1903 (4 Vols.)

Complete Works of Frank Norris. New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1903 (7 Vols.)

The Collected Works of Frank Norris. New York: Doubleday, Doran & Company, Inc., 1928 (10 Vols.)

Norris: Novels and Essays. New York: Library of America, 1986.

References

1)Frank Norris Page at the William Dean Howells Society; includes links to works on the web, bibliography, index to Frank Norris Studies

2)Digital collection at the New York Public Library

3)RomanticistUndertheSkin

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