Trivia

Turn-of-the-20th-century American author, whose starkly realistic works, too strong for readers of his time, are today acclaimed as classics ("McTeague," "The Octopus"). A handsome intellectual, of a wealthy family, his brilliant, promising career was cut off tragically when he died, aged only 32, of peritonitis following a burst appendix, leaving behind a wife and two small children.

His novel "The Pit" was published posthumously in 1903.

He and his wife Jeanette had their first child in 1901.

Brother-in-law of novelist Kathleen Norris.