Famous American author of best selling novels, Atherton wrote creatively on diverse issues relating to women, classical history and her birthplace, California. She penned 60 books and innumerable articles in her lifetime. Her first novel, The Randolphs of Redwoods, appeared in 1883. Her most renowned novels include The Californians (1898), The Conqueror (1902), The Ancestors (1907), and Black Oxen (1923); the last of these was made into a successful movie. Atherton also penned several short stories, collected in Before the Gringo Came. They were later republished under the title The Splendid Idle Forties. Her six hundred page autobiography, The Adventures of a Novelist, was published in 1932. Atherton also wrote articles, travel narratives, and scripts for films and plays.