Frank Norris 162063 222842558 2008-07-01T11:24:09Z Cydebot 1215485 Robot - Moving category Deaths of peritonitis to Deaths from peritonitis per [[WP:CFD|CFD]] at [[Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2008 June 21]]. {{otherpeople2|Benjamin Norris}} {{Infobox Writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox Writer/doc]] --> | name = Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr. | image = Frank Norris.jpg | pseudonym = Frank Norris | birthdate = {{birth date|1870|3|5}} | birthplace = [[Chicago]], [[Illinois]], [[United States]] | deathdate = {{death date and age|1902|10|25|1870|3|5}} | deathplace = [[San Francisco]], [[California]] | occupation = [[Novelist]], [[Writer]] | nationality = [[United States|American]] | genre = | notableworks = ''[[The Epic of Wheat]]'' (unfinished) }} '''Benjamin Franklin Norris, Jr.''' ([[March 5]] [[1870]] – [[October 25]] [[1902]]) was an American novelist, during the [[Progressive Era]], writing predominantly in the [[naturalism (literature)|naturalist]] genre. His notable works include ''[[McTeague]]'' ([[1899]]), ''[[The Octopus (Frank Norris)|The Octopus: A California Story]]'' ([[1901]]), and ''[[The Pit (Novel)|The Pit]]'' ([[1903]]). Although he did not openly support [[socialism]] as a political system, his work nevertheless evinces a socialist mentality and influenced socialist/progressive writers such as [[Upton Sinclair]]. Like many of his contemporaries, he was profoundly influenced by the advent of [[Darwinism]], and [[Thomas Henry Huxley]]'s philosophical defense of it. Norris was particularly influenced by an optimistic strand of Darwinist philosophy taught by [[Joseph LeConte]], whom Norris studied under while at the [[University of California, Berkeley]]. Through many of his novels, notably ''McTeague'', runs a preoccupation with the notion of the civilized man overcoming the inner "brute", his animalistic tendencies. His peculiar, and often confused, brand of Social Darwinism also bears the influence of the early criminologist [[Cesare Lombroso]] and the French naturalist [[Emile Zola]]. ==Biography== Frank Norris was born in Chicago, Illinois in [[1870]], and moved to [[San Francisco]] at the age of fourteen. 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]] between [[1890]] and [[1894]] and then spent a year at [[Harvard University]]. He worked as a news correspondent in [[South Africa]] in [[1895]]&ndash;[[1896|96]], and then an editorial assistant on the ''San Francisco Wave'' (1896&ndash;[[1897|97]]). He worked for ''[[McClure's|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]]. During his time at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] Norris was a brother in the Fraternity of [[Phi Gamma Delta]]. Because of his involvement with a prank during the Class Day Exercises in 1893 the annual alumni dinner held by each Phi Gamma Delta chapter still bears his name. [http://www.phigam.org/history/Songs/PigDinnerOrigins.htm] In 1900 Frank Norris married Jeanette Black. They had a child in 1901. Norris died on [[October 25]] [[1902]] of [[peritonitis]] from a ruptured [[appendix]] in [[San Francisco]].<ref>{{cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Death of Frank Norris |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F03E2DC1E3DEE32A25755C2A9669D946397D6CF |quote=Frank Norris, the novelist, died to-day as the result of an operation for appendicitis performed three days ago. |publisher=[[New York Times]] |date=[[October 26]] [[1902]] |accessdate=2008-06-27 }}</ref> This left ''The Epic of Wheat'' trilogy unfinished. He was only 32. He was buried in [[Mountain View Cemetery (Oakland, California)|Mountain View Cemetery]] in [[Oakland, California]]. ==Legacy== His short story "A Deal in Wheat" (1903) and the novel ''[[The Pit (novel)|The Pit]]'' were the basis for the 1909 [[D.W. Griffith]] film ''[[A Corner in Wheat]]''. Norris' ''McTeague'' has been filmed repeatedly, most famously as a [[1924]] film called ''[[Greed (film)|Greed]]'' by director [[Erich von Stroheim]], which is today considered a classic of [[Silent film|silent cinema]].[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0015881] An opera by William Bolcolm, based loosely on this 1899 novel, was premiered by Chicago's Lyric Opera in 1992. The work is in two acts, with libretto by Arnold Weinstein and Robert Altman. The Lyric Opera's presentation featured Ben Heppner in the title role and Catherine Malfitano as Trina, the dentist's wife. ==Writings== Norris's work often includes depictions of suffering caused by corrupt and greedy turn-of-the-century corporate monopolies, but Norris has been criticized for the apologetic stance his work seems to take,{{Fact|date=June 2008}} in the end, toward unbounded capitalism and corporate trusts. In ''[[The Octopus]]'', for example, 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." One of his greatest books may have been Vandover and the Brute, published after his death. The story is about four college friends, on their way to success, and the ruin of one through a degenerate lifestyle. == Bibliography == [[Image:The Curse of California.jpg|thumb|right|200px|19th century Press caricature of the Southern Pacific Railroad's monopoly]] * ''Moran of the Lady Letty'' (1898) * ''Blix'' Grosset & Dunlap NY (1899) * ''[[McTeague]]'' (1899) &mdash; a naturalist work about the life and trials of a dentist in turn-of-the-century [[San Francisco, California]]. Filmed as ''[[Greed (film)|Greed]]'' by [[Erich von Stroheim]] in [[1924]]. * ''A Man's Woman'' ([[1900]]) * ''The Responsibilities of the Novelist'' ([[1903]]) &mdash; a collection of essay on the role of the writer * ''[[Vandover and the Brute]]'' (posthumously published [[1914]]) &mdash; a study of degeneration. ''[[The Epic of Wheat]]'' trilogy: * ''[[The Octopus (Frank Norris)|Octopus: A Story of California]]'' (1901) &mdash; describes the raising of [[wheat]] in [[California]] and the conflict between the wheat growers and a railway company; Norris was inspired by the events surrounding the [[Southern Pacific Railroad]] [[Mussel Slough Tragedy]]. * ''[[The Pit (Novel)|The Pit]]'' (1903) &mdash; the second novel in the trilogy, about wheat speculation within the [[Chicago Board of Trade]]. * The third novel, ''[[Wolf (Frank Norris)|Wolf]],'' was never written but was to have shown the American-grown wheat relieving a famine-stricken village in Europe. === Collected editions === *''Novels and Essays'', Donald Pizer, ed. (New York: [http://www.loa.org The Library of America], 1986) Includes ''Vandover and the Brute'', ''McTeague'', and ''The Octopus'', with selected essays on literary subjects. ISBN 978-0-94045040-0 == References == {{reflist}} ==Further reading== *Hochman, Barbara. ''The Art of Frank Norris, Storyteller'' University of Missouri Press (1988) ISBN 0-8262-0663-8 *McElrath, Joseph R., Jr. and Crisler, Jesse S. ''Frank Norris: A Life'', University of Illinois Press (2006) ISBN 0-252-03016-8 (the definitive biography of Norris) == External links == {{wikisource author}} *[http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=creator%3Afrank%20norris%20-contributor%3Agutenberg%20AND%20mediatype%3Atexts Works by Frank Norris] at [[Internet Archive]] (scanned books original editions) * {{gutenberg author|id=Frank_Norris|name=Frank Norris}} (plain text and HTML) * [http://www.howellssociety.org/norris.htm Frank Norris Page at the William Dean Howells Society; includes links to works on the web, bibliography, index to ''Frank Norris Studies''] * [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=764 Frank Norris' Gravesite] {{DEFAULTSORT:Norris, Frank}} [[Category:1870 births]] [[Category:1902 deaths]] [[Category:American novelists]] [[Category:California writers]] [[Category:Investigative journalists]] [[Category:Deaths from peritonitis]] [[de:Frank Norris]] [[fr:Frank Norris]]