Books with author Frank NORRIS

This is a pre-1923 historical reproduction that was curated for quality. Quality assurance was conducted on each of these books in an attempt to remove books with imperfections introduced by the digitization process. Though we have made best efforts - the books may have occasional errors that do not impede the reading experience. We believe this work is culturally important and have elected to bring the book back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.

These novels, while forming a series, will be in no way connected with each other save only in their relation to (1) the production, (2) the distribution, (3) the consumption of American wheat. When complete, they will form the story of a crop of wheat from the time of its sowing as seed in California to the time of its consumption as bread in a village of Western Europe.

The Octopus: A Story of California is a 1901 novel by Frank Norris and was meant to be the first part of an uncompleted trilogy, The Epic of the Wheat. It describes the wheat industry in California, and the conflicts between wheat growers and a railway company. Norris was inspired to write the novel by the Central Pacific Railroad and the Mussel Slough Tragedy. In the novel he depicts the tensions between the railroad, the ranchers and the ranchers' League. The book emphasized the control of "forces"—such as the power of railroad monopolies—over individuals. Some editions of the work give the subtitle as alternatively, A California Story.

Like his more famous contemporary Upton Sinclair, American author BENJAMIN FRANKLIN NORRIS, JR. (1870-1902) also highlighted the corruption and greed of corporate monopolies in the late 19th and early 20th centuries... themes that continue to make his work riveting reading more than a century later. The Pit, first published in 1903, is a fictional narrative of the dealing in the Chicago wheat pit, focusing on speculator Curtis Jadwin, who is so addicted to his own greed that it becomes his downfall. The second part of Norris's projected "Trilogy of the Epic of the Wheat," *The Pit is preceded by 1901's The Octopus, also available from Cosimo. (Norris died before he could write the third volume, The Wolf.)

The Octopus Frank Norris (1870 - 1902) Frank Norris based his 1901 novel The Octopus (A Story of California) on the Mussel Slough Tragedy of 1880, a bloody conflict between ranchers and agents of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The central issue was over the ownership of the ranches, which the farmers had leased from the railroad nearly ten years earlier with intentions of eventually purchasing the land. Although originally priced at $2.50 to $5 per acre, the railroad eventually opened the land for sale at prices adjusted for land improvements; the railroad’s attempts to take possession of the land led the ranchers to defend themselves as depicted in the book.