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    Charles Gilman Norris (1881-1945)
    Kathleen Thompson Norris (1880-1966)

     
Kathleen NorrisCharles and Kathleen Norris Collection at U.C. BerkeleyCharles Gilman Norris

Arnold Genthe's  photographs of Charles G. and Kathleen Norris at the Library of Congress.
Images courtesy of the Arnold Genthe Collection at the Library of Congress

from The Oxford Companion to American Literature:
"Charles G. Norris, brother of Frank Norris, author of novels dealing with such problems as modern education, women in business, hereditary and environmental influences, big business, ethics and birth control."
"Kathleen [Thompson] Norris, (1880-1966), his wife," was a popular novelist.  "Family Gathering  (1959) is an informal autobiography."

from Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York: Noonday Press/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1995), 533:

"Kathleen Norris was the most interesting novelist of feminine and matriarchal sentimentalist essentialism in the 1910s and 1920s; vastly popular, with a curious literary style that seems to owe a good deal to Henry  James, she developed the themes that would dominate the soaps of early radio, aroused the ire (and perhaps envy) of Dorothy Parker, was adored by Alexander Wollcott (always a fan of the matriarch), and took acre of Elinor Wylie’s stepchildren (they were related by marriage; forgotten today, she is well worth in-depth study.  Of particular interest are her novels Josselyn’s Wife (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1918), in which the heroine is a potent emblem of “wizardry”; Martie the Unconquered (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1917), whose heroine is robust, wide-eyed, and extremely ambitious; Harriet and the Piper  (Garden City, NY Doubleday, 1920), a tale of eminent upward mobility via marriage; Second Hand Wife (1932), a study of heroic feminine self-sacrifice; and Beauty’s daughter  (1935), a fictionalized manual on how-to-hold-your-man that contains Norris’s richest character study in the heroine’s mother, Magda, an aging, acerbic, colorful ex-actress."

Kathleen Norris,  New texts available online.

Martie, the Unconquered (Gutenberg text; unofficial until 31 Aug 2003) 
Mother: A Story (Gutenberg text; unofficial until 31 Jan 2003) 
Poor, Dear Margaret Kirby, and Other Stories (Gutenberg text; unofficial until 31 Aug 2003) 
The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne (Gutenberg text; unofficial until 31 Jul 2003) 
The Treasure (Gutenberg text; unofficial until 31 Jul 2003) 

See also Norris, Charles Gilman, Kathleen Thompson Norris, and Richard Allan Davison. Charles & Kathleen Norris : The Courtship Year. Book Club of California publication ; no. 202. San Francisco: Book Club of California, 1993.

from Matthew Bruccoli. ed., F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters (1994): 

    But hic jubililatio erat totam spoiled for meum par lisant une livre, une novellum (novum) nomine "Salt" par Herr C. G. [N]orris--a most astounding piece of realism, it makes Fortitude look like an antique mental ash-can and is quite as good as [Arnold Bennett's] The Old Wives' Tale. . . . Read Salt young girl so that you may know what life B. --F. Scott Fitzgerald, letter to Alida Bigelow, 23 September 1919.  Spelling is Fitzgerald's; bold lettering has been added by the site author.

    I know Gatsby better than I know my own child.  My first instinct after your letter was to let him go & have Tom Buchanan dominate the book (I suppose he's the best character I've ever done--I think he and the brother in "Salt" & Hurstwood in "Sister Carrie" are the three best characters in American fiction in the last twenty years, perhaps and perhaps not) but Gatsby sticks in my heart.

    --F. Scott Fitzgerald to Maxwell Perkins, c. 20 December 1924 


Novels and Short Stories

  • The Amateur. New York: George H. Doran, 1916.
  • Salt; or, The Education of Griffith Adams. N. Y.: E.P. Dutton and Company, 1919.
  • Brass;  A Novel of Marriage. N.Y.: E. P. Dutton, 1921.
  • Marriage; Short Stories of Married life by American Writers, Tarkington, Cutting, Hergesheimer, Miller, Street, Delano, Norris, Gale, Harrison, Kelland, Hopper, Adams, Butler, Foster, Hughes, Dreiser, Cooper, Turner, Webster, Lincoln. Garden City, N. Y.,: Doubleday Page, 1923.
  • Bread. N.Y: Dutton, 1923.
  • Pig Iron. N.Y: E. P. Dutton, 1926.
  • Zelda Marsh. N.Y.: E.P. Dutton, 1927.
  • Seed, A Novel of Birth Control. Garden City, N.Y.,: Doubleday Doran, 1930.
  • Zest. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday Doran, 1933.
  • Hands. New York,: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935.
  • Bricks Without Straw. N.Y.:  Doubleday Doran, 1938.
  • Flint. Garden City, New York.: Doubleday Doran, 1944.
Plays
  • Norris, Charles Gilman, Nino Marcelli, and Calif. Bohemian Club (San Francisco). The Rout of the Philistines : A Forest Play. San Francisco, Calif.: Bohemian Club, 1922.
  • Norris, Charles Gilman, Robert C. Newell, and Bohemian Club. A Gest of Robin Hood. San Francisco,: Bohemian Club, 1929.
  • Norris, Charles Gilman, Walter Scott, and Calif. Bohemian Club (San Francisco). Ivanhoe: A Grove Play. San Francisco: Bohemian Club, 1936.
Works on  Frank Norris
  • Norris, Frank. A Deal in Wheat, and Other Stories of the New and Old West. New York,: Doubleday Page, 1903.
  • Norris, Frank, and Charles Gilman Norris (introd.). The Octopus : A Story of California. Garden City, N. Y.: Doubleday Page & Co., 1924.
  • Norris, Frank, and Charles Gilman Norris. The Third Circle. New York,: J. Lane Company, 1909.
  • Norris, Charles Gilman. Frank Norris, 1870-1902; An Intimate Sketch of the Man who was Universally Acclaimed the Greatest American Writer of His Generation. New York,: Doubleday Page, 1914.

    • Norris, Frank, Oscar Lewis, and Charles Gilman Norris. Frank Norris of "the Wave": Stories & Sketches from the San Francisco Weekly, 1893 to 1897. San Francisco,: The Westgate Press, 1931.