Octave Thanet

Born Alice French in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1850, she moved as a child to Davenport, Iowa, and wrote under the name Octave Thanet. She became an American novelist and short-story writer whose work appeared prominently in magazines during the late nineteenth century, when local-color fiction was especially popular.

Her stories often drew on places she knew well, including Iowa and the Arkansas Black River region, where she spent time at a winter home in Clover Bend. Readers of her day knew her for sharply observed settings and for fiction that reflected the social ideas and class assumptions of her era.

French remained a notable literary figure into the early twentieth century and published a substantial body of work, including novels and story collections. She died in Davenport in 1934, leaving behind a career that offers a revealing snapshot of American popular writing at the turn of the century.