author
Anna M. (Anna Mariska) Fitch
1840–1904
Among the first Californian women to publish a novel, this American writer worked under several pen names and moved through literary circles in California, Nevada, and Hawaiʻi. She is best remembered for fiction including Better Days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow, written with her husband Thomas Fitch.
1 Audiobook
Better days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow
by Thomas Fitch, Anna M. (Anna Mariska) Fitch
About the author
Born in Vermont in March 1840, she became an American writer whose life crossed several Western literary communities. Sources describe her as one of the first women in California to produce a novel, and they also note that she wrote under names including Anna Guesner, Anna Kluesner, and Marisa A. Guesner.
She married the politician and orator Thomas Fitch, and later accounts say she may have helped him with some of his writing. Her best-known work is Better Days; or, A Millionaire of To-morrow (1891), a speculative novel credited to both Thomas Fitch and Anna M. Fitch.
She died in Los Angeles on April 15, 1904. Although not widely known today, her career connects early women writers, Western publishing history, and early speculative fiction in a way that still makes her an interesting figure.