Gertrude Atherton

The Sisters-in-law Gertrude Atherton

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (1857 - 1948) was a feminist American writer. Her husband discouraged her writing and in 1882 when she published her first novel the family was scandalized. Atherton is best remembered for her California series of novels and short stories. Her stories feature strong heroines who pursue independent careers. The Sisters-in-Law begins: "The long street rising and falling and rising again until its farthest crest high in the east seemed to brush the fading stars, was deserted even by the private watchmen that guarded the homes of the apprehensive in the Western Addition. Alexina darted across and into the shadows of the avenue that led up to her old-fashioned home, a relic of San Francisco's early days, perched high on the steepest of the casual hills in that city of a hundred hills. She was breathless and rather frightened, for although of an adventurous spirit, which had led her to slide down the pillars of the verandah at night when her legs were longer than her years, and during the past winter to make a hardly less dignified exit by a side door when her worthy but hopelessly Victorian mother was asleep, this was the first time that she had been out after midnight."