Harriet Stark

Harriet Stark was an American author best known for The Bacillus of Beauty: A Romance of To-day, published by F. A. Stokes in 1900. Modern catalog and public-domain records consistently connect her name with that novel, but readily available biographical information about her life appears to be very sparse.

The book itself suggests the kind of writer she was: playful, curious, and interested in the meeting point between modern ideas and popular fiction. Its title and plot place beauty, biology, and social ambition side by side, giving the story an offbeat flavor that helps it stand out among novels of its era.

Because so little verified personal detail is easy to confirm, Stark remains something of a mystery. That obscurity can make her especially appealing to curious readers: she is one of those authors whose surviving work does most of the talking for her.