Abstract
As did her contemporaries Henry James, Edith Wharton, and Gertrude Stein, American novelist Gertrude Atherton (1857-1948) spent a significant portion of her life and gathered a considerable volume of her literary material living in Europe. One of a handful of American female novelists who reported from Europe during the First World War, Atherton spent most of her time abroad in England and Germany, although she also visited Paris often enough to be welcomed at Gertrude Stein’s salon, later returning Stein’s hospitality by organizing and hosting her literary tour of Atherton’s native California.’ A self-declared “adventurer” in letters, Atherton prided herself on being willing to travel anywhere in order to conduct research for her books, and made trips to Greece, Cuba, and the West Indies as well—unusual destinations for a single woman in her day. In 1903, she proudly declared to a journalist who was interviewing her for a chapter in Women Authors of Our Day in Their Homes, “I have no home” (Halsey 254). According to Atherton, freedom was “essential to any artist … and is to be found only through an open mind and a wide and varying horizon” (254). Only when she was well into her seventies did she return to California to stay.
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© 2013 Ferdâ Asya
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Petrie, W.C. (2013). Gertrude Atherton’s Europe: Portal or Looking Glass?. In: Asya, F. (eds) American Writers in Europe. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340023_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340023_4
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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