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.

When her father died toward the end of World War I, Bennett assumed care for her invalid mother.

[3] Virtually all of Bennett's work dates from 1917 to 1920, when she began to write short stories and novels to support the household.

She stopped writing when her mother died in 1920; one later work published in 1923 appears to have been written during the late 'teens, and submitted to Weird Tales when that magazine was just starting up.

[3] Although the initials disguised her gender, this appears to be the first instance of an American female author publishing science fiction, and using her real name.

[3] Once Bennett began to take care of her mother, she decided to return to fiction writing as a means of supporting her family.

The magazine's editor chose not to use the pseudonym Bennett suggested (Jean Vail) and instead credited the story to Francis Stevens.

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.

(Argosy, 1920; reprinted 1966, 2004, 2018), in which a supernatural artifact summons an ancient and powerful god to early 20th century New Jersey.

This rumor only ended with the 1952 reprinting of Citadel of Fear, which featured a biographical introduction of Bennett by Lloyd Arthur Eshbach.

[18][19] Critic Sam Moskowitz said she was the "greatest woman writer of science fiction in the period between Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and C.L.