author

Kathleen Carman

1875–1959

A little-known early 20th-century fiction writer, she is remembered today for “The Debt,” a short story published by The Atlantic in 1915. Very little biographical information appears to survive online, which gives her work an added air of mystery.

1 Audiobook

Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories; Second Series

Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories; Second Series

by Mary Antin, Elizabeth Ashe, Kathleen Carman, Cornelia A. P. (Cornelia Atwood Pratt) Comer, Mazo De la Roche, Annie Hamilton Donnell, James Edmund Dunning, Rebecca Hooper Eastman, William Addleman Ganoe, Lucy Huffaker, Joseph Husband, S. H. Kemper, Christina Krysto, Ellen Mackubin, Edith Ronald Mirrielees, Margaret Prescott Montague, Edward Morlae, Meredith Nicholson, Kathleen Thompson Norris, Laura Spencer Portor, Lucy Pratt, Elsie Singmaster, Charles Haskins Townsend, Edith Wyatt

About the author

Kathleen Carman is a scarce figure in the historical record, but her name remains attached to early magazine fiction. The Atlantic lists her as the author of “The Debt,” published on February 1, 1915, and later library-style catalogs and public-domain listings continue to preserve her work.

She is also credited as a contributor to Atlantic Narratives: Modern Short Stories; Second Series, a collection that helped keep stories from The Atlantic Monthly in circulation for later readers. That suggests she was part of the magazine-fiction world of her time, even if many details about her life have not been easily preserved.

Because reliable biographical sources are so limited, it is safest to remember her through the writing itself: as an early 1900s short-story author whose work has outlasted the usual record of fame.