Francis Stevens (1883-1948)

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Gertrude Mabel Barrows was born in Minneapolis in 1883. She died in California 1948. In 1909 she married Stewart Bennett with whom she had one child. A year later he died while on an expedition.

She wrote her first short story at age 17, a science fiction story titled "The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar" and mailed the story to Argosy, then one of the top pulp magazines. The story was accepted and published in the March 1904 issue.

When her father died toward the end of WWI, she assumed care for her invalid mother. At that time she decided to return to fiction writing as a means of supporting her family. The first story she completed after her return to writing was the novella "The Nightmare," which appeared in All-Story Weekly in 1917. The story is set on an island separated from the rest of the world, on which evolution has taken a different course. "The Nightmare" resembles Edgar Rice Burroughs "The Land That Time Forgot," itself published a year later. 

While Bennett had submitted "The Nightmare" under her own name, she had asked to use a pseudonym if it was published. The magazine's editor chose not to use the pseudonym Bennett suggested (Jean Vail) and instead credited the story to Francis Stevens. When readers responded positively to the story, Bennett chose to continue writing under the name.

Over the next few years, she wrote a number of short stories and novellas. Her short story "Friend Island" (All-Story Weekly, 1918) is set in a 22nd century ruled by women. Another story is the novella "Serapion" (Argosy, 1920), about a man possessed by a supernatural creature. This story has been released in an electronic book entitled "Possessed: A Tale of the Demon Serapion," with three other stories by her. Many of her short stories have been collected in "The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy" (University of Nebraska Press, 2004).

In 1918 she published her first, and perhaps best, novel "The Citadel of Fear" (Argosy, 1918). This lost world story focuses on a forgotten Aztec city, which is rediscovered during World War I. It was in the introduction to a 1952 reprint edition of the novel which revealed for the first time that Francis Stevens was Bennett's pen-name.

A year later she published her only science fiction novel, "The Heads of Cerberus" (The Thrill Book, 1919). One of the first dystopian novels, the book features a "grey dust from a silver phial" which transports anyone who inhales it to a totalitarian Philadelphia of 2118 AD.

Gertrude was the first major female writer of fantasy and science fiction in the U.S., publishing her stories under the name Francis Stevens. She wrote a number of highly acclaimed fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy." Among her most famous books are Claimed", described by Augustus T. Swift in a letter to Argosy as, "One of the strangest and most compelling science fantasy novels you will ever read".