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Lucia Chamberlain

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Lucia Chamberlain
A young white woman with dark hair in a bouffant updo, wearing a hat and seated in a chair
Chamberlain, photographed by Zaida Ben-Yusuf in c. 1908
Born(1882-02-16)February 16, 1882
San Francisco, California, US
DiedDecember 3, 1978(1978-12-03) (aged 96)
Santa Cruz, California, US
OccupationWriter
RelativesMary Curtis Richardson (aunt)

Lucia Chamberlain (February 16, 1882 – December 3, 1978) was an American novelist. Her 1909 book The Other Side of the Door was the basis of a 1916 film of the same name,[1] and her 1917 short story "The Underside" formed the basis of the 1920 film Blackmail.[2][3] The 1916 film The Wedding Guest is also based on her writing.[4]

Early life

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Chamberlain was born in San Francisco,[5][6] the daughter of John Chamberlain and Leila Curtis Chamberlain. Her maternal grandfather Lucien Curtis was an engraver from Connecticut,[7] and her mother had a wood engraving business in the city in the 1870s.[8][9] Her aunt, Mary Curtis Richardson, was a noted portrait artist.[10][11] She and her sister were encouraged to write by Canadian poet Bliss Carman.[12]

Career

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WorldCat lists Chamberlain's genres of writing as fiction, detective and mystery fiction, short stories,[13] and Western fiction.[14] At least two of her books were translated into Swedish and published as Den stulna ringen (The Stolen Ring)[15] and Falska indicier (False Clues).[16]

H. L. Mencken, writing in The Smart Set in 1909, described The Other Side of the Door as: "A mildly diverting tale of adventure, with the scene laid in early San Francisco, and a fiery Latin flavor in some of the characters."[17]

Chamberlain wrote her first two books, Mrs. Essington and The Coast of Chance, in collaboration with her older sister, Esther,[18] who owned an advertising agency in New York.[19][20] Mrs. Essington was reviewed in The New York Times.[21] Esther died in 1908.[12]

In 1932, Chamberlain co-organized an exhibition of works by Mary Curtis Richardson, at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco.[10]

Personal life

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Lucia Chamberlain lived on Russian Hill in San Francisco.[22] She died in 1978, in Santa Cruz, California, aged 96 years.[23]

Selected publications

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  • Chamberlain, Esther; Chamberlain, Lucia (1905). Mrs Essington: The Romance of a House-Party. New York: Century.
  • Chamberlain, Esther; Chamberlain, Lucia (1908). The Coast of Chance. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
  • Chamberlain, Lucia (1909). The Other Side of the Door. New York: Grosset & Dunlap.
  • Chamberlain, Lucia (1910). Son of the Wind. New York: Bobbs-Merrill.[24]
  • Chamberlain, Lucia. Connors at Shungopovi. (From Everybody's Magazine, September 1905.)[25]

References

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  1. ^ Goble, Alan (September 8, 2011). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. p. 76. ISBN 978-3-11-095194-3. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  2. ^ Goble, Alan (September 8, 2011). The Complete Index to Literary Sources in Film. Walter de Gruyter. p. 648. ISBN 978-3-11-095194-3. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  3. ^ "Movie Girl of Yesterday is to Return to Screen". The Oklahoma City Times. July 6, 1920. p. 15. Retrieved April 2, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ^ "The Wedding Guest". Silent Era. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  5. ^ "Esther and Lucia Chamberlain". The New York Times. May 6, 1905. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  6. ^ Pendennis (July 9, 1905). "Do Our Story Writers Misuse the 'Smart Set'?; How the Chamberlain Girls, Two Young California Sisters Who in Collaboration Wrote 'Mrs. Essington,' Emphasize the Difference Between California Society and the New Yorker You Meet in Romance". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  7. ^ "Lucien Curtis - Biography", AskART, retrieved April 2, 2022
  8. ^ "Historical Locations of San Francisco Women Printers". FoundSF. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  9. ^ Chandler, Robert J. (January 29, 2014). San Francisco Lithographer: African American Artist Grafton Tyler Brown. University of Oklahoma Press. p. 108. ISBN 978-0-8061-4525-9.
  10. ^ a b "Mary Curtis Richardson 1848–1931: Biography and Works" Bancroft Library.
  11. ^ Larsen, Hanna Astrup (March 25, 1907). "Mary Curtis Richardson Talks of Art for Art's Sake". San Francisco Call. Retrieved April 2, 2022 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  12. ^ a b Jerome, Lucy Baker (July 4, 1909). "A San Francisco Novel by Two San Francisco Girls". The San Francisco Call. p. 11. Retrieved April 2, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ^ Chamberlain, Lucia (November 1907). "The Love She Gave Him: A Story of an Engaged Girl's Strange Dilemma". Ladies' Home Journal. 24: 20 – via ProQuest.
  14. ^ "Chamberlain, Lucia". www.worldcat.org. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  15. ^ Catalogue record for 'Den stulna ringern'. WorldCat. OCLC 186072535. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  16. ^ Catalogue record for 'Falska indicier'. WorldCat. OCLC 186158526. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  17. ^ Mencken, H. L. (May–August 1909). "Novels and other books - chiefly bad". The Smart Set. 28: 152–160.
  18. ^ "Two Clever Novels". Los Angeles Herald. May 21, 1905. p. 38. Retrieved April 2, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  19. ^ Niklook. "The Coast of Chance". Etsy. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  20. ^ The Book News Monthly Volume 27. J. Wanenmacher. 1908. pp. 761–762, 775. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  21. ^ "Love's Sacrifices". The New York Times. June 3, 1905. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  22. ^ "Gossip of Books and Writers". San Francisco Call. August 29, 1909. p. 7. Retrieved April 2, 2022 – via California Digital Newspaper Collection.
  23. ^ "Chamberlain (death notice)". Santa Cruz Sentinel. December 5, 1978. p. 26. Retrieved April 2, 2022 – via Newspapers.com.
  24. ^ Catalogue record for 'Son of the wind'. WorldCat. OCLC 263164851. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
  25. ^ Catalogue record for 'Connors at Shungopovi'. WorldCat. OCLC 1243625966. Retrieved April 2, 2022.
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