author

Laura Spencer Portor

1872–1957

A magazine writer with a sharp eye for everyday life, she also had an unexpected sideline in early science fiction. Her work ranged from essays and short stories to novels published under a shared pseudonym.

2 Audiobooks

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

Adventures in indigence, and other essays

Adventures in indigence, and other essays

by Laura Spencer Portor

About the author

Laura Spencer Portor Pope was an American journalist and author born on February 4, 1872, in Kentucky. She published most of her work as Laura Spencer Portor, writing short stories, essays, and books across the early 20th century.

Her writing appeared in magazines including Woman's Home Companion, Harper's Magazine, The Outlook, and The Dial. She also wrote books such as Genevieve; a Story of French School Days and Adventures in Indigence, and Other Essays, showing a range that moved easily between fiction, commentary, and lighter reflective writing.

She is especially remembered today for co-authoring two science fiction novels with Dorothy Giles—The Valley of Creeping Men (1930) and Chattering Gods (1931)—published under the pseudonym Rayburn Crawley. Archival records suggest she kept extensive correspondence and personal writings, leaving behind a fuller picture of a working writer balancing literary ambition with a complicated personal life.