Gwendolen Overton

Gwendolen Overton (1874/76-1958; after marriage, Wilkinson) was an American fiction writer of novels and short stories. She spent her early life on the frontier with numerous changes of residence incident to her father's army life. This gave her a wide acquaintance with the country, and she absorbed the materials for much of her subsequent work. After living in various Eastern cities, and in Europe, she traveled in Canada, Mexico, and Central America before making her home in California. Overton began writing at an early age, and published several books, notably A Heritage of Unrest and The Captain's Daughter, as well as some short stories. Her parents were Jane Dyson (née Watkins) and Captain Gilbert Edmond Overton, an officer in the United States Army. She came from a long line of U.S.-born ancestors.

She began her continuous traveling when she was a month or two old. At that time she was taken with the troops, in an ambulance, on the long march from Kansas to Arizona. She lived in nearly all the army posts of Arizona and New Mexico. She took to ridding on the back of a burro at a young age, and then a mule, before she became a horsewoman. Overton was considered to be one of the finest horsewomen in the army. Overton was at her desk by 8:30 every morning and worked until lunch time. A Heritage of Unrest, a psychological study set in Arizona; and Anne Carmel, set in Nova Scotia. Captains of the World is presented from the point of view of the labor union.

Her first story was printed in the Evening Star of Washington, D.C, about 1890. Since then, she was a frequent contributor of short stories to Ainslee's Magazine, Appleton's Magazine, Harper's Monthly Magazine, Our Paper, St. Nicholas, The Argonaut , The Forum, The Railway Clerk, and other Eastern magazines.

In religion, she was Episcopalian, but particularly interested in the broader Theosophical doctrines. "A Wall Tent Bewitchment", Ainslee's Magazine, 1901 "Revolt Against Petticoat Rule", Appleton's Magazine, 1903 "The Speech of Deeds", Harper's Monthly Magazine, 1907

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