author
Margaret Collier Graham
1850–1910
A sharp-eyed storyteller of early Southern California, she turned local landscapes and everyday lives into nationally published fiction. Her work helped capture a fast-changing region at the turn of the twentieth 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 became known as a short story writer whose fiction was closely tied to Southern California. She settled in the Pasadena area and wrote about California life at a time when the region was still being imagined in national literature.
Her stories appeared in major magazines, and she later published collections including Stories of the Foot-hills and The Wizard's Daughter, and Other Stories. The surviving record of her papers and the continued availability of her books suggest a writer who was both active in literary circles and remembered for her regional voice.
She died in 1910. Today, she is often noted as an early interpreter of foothill and small-town California, blending local color with a lively, readable style.