Responsibilities of the Novelist & Other Literary Essays

by Frank Norris

Norris's posthumously published monograph setting forth the philosophy which guided his brief but extremely prolific career.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY: Books for College Libraries; Catalogue of the Lamont Library, Harvard College; M.

Library Binding

First published January 1, 1903

About the author

Naturalistic novels of noted American writer Benjamin Franklin Norris, Junior, brother of Charles Gilman Norris and sister-in-law of Kathleen Thompson Norris, about American life include McTeague in 1899.

This novelist during the Progressive era predominantly authored works that include The Octopus: A California Story (1901) and The Pit (1903). Although he not openly supported socialism as a political system, his work nevertheless evinces a socialist mentality and influenced socialist-progressive writers, such as Upton Beall Sinclair. Philosophical defense of Thomas Henry Huxley of the advent of Darwinism profoundly influenced him like many of his contemporaries. Norris studied under Joseph LeConte, who at the University of California, Berkeley, taught an optimistic strand of Darwinist philosophy that particularly influenced him. 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 Émile Zola.