Gertrude Barrows Bennett

Gertrude Barrows Bennett (September 18, 1884 – February 2, 1948), known by the pseudonym Francis Stevens, was a pioneering American author of fantasy and science fiction. Bennett wrote a number of fantasies between 1917 and 1923 and has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy".

Her most famous books include Claimed (which Augustus T. Swift, in a letter to The Argosy called "One of the strangest and most compelling science fantasy novels you will ever read") and the lost world novel The Citadel of Fear.

Bennett also wrote an early dystopian novel, The Heads of Cerberus (1919).

Life Gertrude Mabel Barrows was born in Minneapolis in 1884, to Charles and Caroline Barrows (née Hatch). Her father, a Civil War veteran from Illinois, died in 1892. Gertrude completed school through the eighth grade,

In 1909 Barrows married Stewart Bennett, a British journalist and explorer, and moved to Philadelphia. With a new-born daughter to raise, Bennett continued working as a stenographer. When her father died toward the end of World War I, Bennett assumed care for her invalid mother.

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 the introduction to a 1952 reprint edition of the novel which revealed 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. Augustus T. Swift called the novel "One of the strangest and most compelling science fantasy novels you will ever read".

Apparently The Thrill Book had accepted more of her stories when it was cancelled in October 1919, only seven months after the first issue. These were never published and became lost.

As for Merritt, for several decades critics and readers believed "Francis Stevens" was a pseudonym of his. This rumor only ended with the 1952 reprinting of Citadel of Fear, which featured a biographical introduction of Bennett by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach.

Critic Sam Moskowitz said she was the "greatest woman writer of science fiction in the period between Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and C.L. Moore". Armchair Fiction, 2015. The Heads of Cerberus (serialized in Thrill Book, August 15 to October 15, 1919). Reprinted by Polaris Press, 1952; Carroll & Graf, 1984; Dover, 2014; Modern Library, 2019; MIT Press, 2024. Avalon (serialized in Argosy, August 16 to September 6, 1919). Reprinted in Claimed! and Avalon (Black Dog Books, 2018). Claimed (serialized in Argosy, March 6 to March 20, 1920). Reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, April 1941; Avalon Books, 1966; Carroll & Graf, 1985; Penguin, 2024.

Short stories and novellas "The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar" (Argosy, March 1904; as "G. M. Barrows") "The Nightmare" (All-Story Weekly, April 14, 1917) "The Labyrinth" (serialized in All-Story Weekly, July 27 to August 10, 1918) "Friend Island" (All-Story Weekly, September 7, 1918). Reprinted in Fantastic Novels, September 1950; reprinted in Under the Moons of Mars, edited by Sam Moskowitz, 1970. "Behind the Curtain" (All-Story Weekly, September 21, 1918). Reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, January 1940. "Unseen—Unfeared" (People's Favorite Magazine February 10, 1919). Reprinted in Horrors Unknown, edited by Sam Moskowitz, 1971. "The Elf-Trap" (Argosy, July 5, 1919). Reprinted in Fantastic Novels Magazine, November 1949. "Serapion" (serialized in Argosy Weekly, June 19, June 26, July 3, and July 10, 1920). Reprinted in Famous Fantastic Mysteries, July 1942. "Sunfire" (1923; original printed in two parts in Weird Tales, July–August 1923, and Weird Tales, September 1923). Reprinted in 1996 by Apex International.

Collections The Nightmare and Other Tales of Dark Fantasy, ed. Gary Hoppenstand (University of Nebraska Press, 2004; contains all Stevens' known short fiction ("The Nightmare", "The Labyrinth", "Friend Island", "Behind the Curtain", "Unseen-Unfeared", "The Elf-Trap", "Serapion" and "Sunfire"), except for "The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar". The Heads of Cerberus and Other Stories, ed. Lisa Yaszek (MIT Press, 2024). Includes: The Heads of Cerberus, "The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar", "Friend Island", "Behind the Curtain", "Unseen-Unfeared" and "The Elf-Trap".