author
Margaret Collier Graham
1850–1910
A sharp-eyed early California writer, she turned life in the foothills into vivid short fiction with humor, realism, and a strong sense of place. Her work helped capture the feel of Southern California as it was rapidly changing at the turn of the 20th century.
2 Audiobooks
Stories of the Foot-hills
by Margaret Collier Graham
The Wizard's Daughter, and Other Stories
by Margaret Collier Graham
About the author
Born in Iowa in 1850, Margaret Collier Graham later became a writer closely associated with Southern California. Sources agree that she attended Monmouth College, taught school, and married Donald McIntyre Graham before moving west in the 1870s.
She is best known for short stories set in the foothill communities of early Southern California. Her collection Stories of the Foot-Hills and other fiction drew on regional life she knew firsthand, and she is also remembered as an early Pasadena-area settler and an active participant in local civic life.
A lively self-portrait survives in a letter quoted by the City of Wildomar, where she joked that she had lived in California since 1876 and therefore had no desire to go to heaven. She died in 1910, leaving behind fiction that still offers a vivid window into the people and landscapes of her time.