author
Octave Thanet
1850–1934
A bestselling American writer of the late 19th century, this author published fiction under the pen name Octave Thanet and became known for vivid regional stories set in the Midwest and South.
4 Audiobooks
The lion's share
by Octave Thanet
The Missionary Sheriff Being incidents in the life of a plain man who tried to do his duty
by Octave Thanet
Stories of a Western Town
by Octave Thanet
Stories That End Well
by Octave Thanet
About the author
Born Alice French in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1850, she moved with her family to Davenport, Iowa, as a child and later wrote under the pseudonym Octave Thanet. She became a popular novelist and short-story writer, especially admired in her own time for local-color fiction that drew on life in Iowa, Arkansas, and other parts of the American interior.
Her first story appeared in 1878, and by the 1880s and 1890s she was publishing widely in major magazines and bringing out story collections and novels. Readers knew her for energetic, realistic tales of work, class, and regional life, and she was among the better-known magazine authors of her era.
Although her reputation faded after her lifetime, Octave Thanet remains an interesting figure in American literary history: a writer who achieved real fame under a pen name and helped shape the regional fiction that flourished at the turn of the twentieth century.