The Sacrificial Altar

Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (1857-1948) was an American writer. Her husband discouraged her writing; and the serial publication of her first novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods (1882), though unsigned, scandalized her family. After her husband's death, in 1887, she was free to pursue her writing career as a protégé of Ambrose Bierce, eventually writing 60 books and numerous articles and short stories. Atherton's first signed novel, What Dreams May Come, was published in 1888 under the pseudonym Frank Lin. She is best remembered for her series of novels and short stories dealing with the social history of California. The series includes The Splendid, Idle Forties (1902), The Conqueror (1902) and Black Oxen (1923). Amongst her other works are Senator North (1900), The Sacrificial Altar (1916), The Avalanche (1919) and Sleeping Fires (1922).