author
Charles Caldwell Dobie
1881–1943
A lifelong San Franciscan, he turned the city’s history and atmosphere into vivid fiction and nonfiction. His work helped fix old San Francisco and Chinatown in the popular imagination, blending storytelling with a strong sense of place.
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 in 1881, Charles Caldwell Dobie left school young after his father died and worked for years in the insurance business before writing full time. He built his reputation as a novelist, short-story writer, and historian, and he remained closely tied to his native city throughout his life.
Much of his best-known work drew on San Francisco itself. Along with novels such as The Blood Red Dawn, he wrote books including San Francisco: A Pageant and San Francisco's Chinatown, which made him especially associated with the city’s past and character. The Blood Red Dawn was adapted for film as The Inner Chamber.
Dobie died in San Francisco in 1943. Remembered as both a storyteller and a local historian, he is still of interest to readers who enjoy regional writing and portraits of early California life.