author
Blanche Sellers Ortman
1870–1948
Remembered for gentle, nature-minded fiction and a travel narrative that carried readers from America to Asia, this early 20th-century writer left behind a small but distinctive body of work. Her books suggest a love of simple storytelling, vivid places, and quiet reflection.
1 Audiobook
The old house, and other stories
by Blanche Sellers Ortman
About the author
Born in 1870 and later known as Blanche Sellers Ortman, she was an American writer whose surviving books include The Old House, and Other Stories (1910) and New York to Peking (1921). Her fiction has a warm, reflective tone, and The Old House was privately printed in Chicago in a small edition.
Her travel book records a journey to Asia after World War I, showing that her interests reached beyond domestic fiction into firsthand travel writing. Bibliographic records also connect her with Keokuk, Iowa, and later with Greenwood, Virginia.
She died in 1948. Although not widely known today, her work still circulates through public-domain and library collections, where readers can discover her mix of quiet storytelling and interest in the wider world.