author
Charles Caldwell Dobie
1881–1943
A lifelong San Franciscan, this early-20th-century novelist and historian turned the city’s streets, legends, and neighborhoods into vivid stories. His work ranges from fiction to warmly detailed books about San Francisco’s past, including its famous Chinatown.
3 Audiobooks
Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories
by Elizabeth Ashe, Henry Seidel Canby, Cornelia A. P. (Cornelia Atwood Pratt) Comer, Charles Caldwell Dobie, Madeleine Z. (Madeleine Zabriskie) Doty, H. G. (Harrison Griswold) Dwight, John Galsworthy, Katharine Fullerton Gerould, Katharine Butler Hathaway, Zephine Humphrey, Mary Lerner, F. J. Louriet, E. V. (Edward Verrall) Lucas, Margaret Lynn, C. A. Mercer, Margaret Prescott Montague, E. (Edith) Nesbit, Anne Douglas Sedgwick, Dallas Lore Sharp, Margaret Pollock Sherwood, Ernest Starr, Amy Wentworth Stone, Arthur Russell Taylor
The Blood Red Dawn
by Charles Caldwell Dobie
Broken to the Plow A Novel
by Charles Caldwell Dobie
About the author
Born in San Francisco on March 15, 1881, he remained closely tied to the city throughout his life. After his father died, he left school young and worked in insurance before writing full time, a path that shaped his plain, hardworking voice and deep feel for local life.
He became known both as a novelist and as a popular historian of San Francisco. His novel The Blood Red Dawn was adapted into the 1921 film The Inner Chamber, and his later books helped fix his reputation as a writer who could bring the city’s history, character, and neighborhoods to life for general readers.
Among his best-known works are San Francisco: A Pageant and San Francisco's Chinatown. He died in San Francisco on January 11, 1943, leaving behind writing that is still closely associated with the city he knew best.