Francis Stevens - The Heads of Cerberus: "These heads, with savage, snarling jaws, all emerged from one collar, set with five small but brilliant rubi

A pseudonym of Gertrude Barrows Bennett

Gertrude Barrows Bennett was born in Minneapolis on 18th September 1884.

She completed school up to the eighth grade, then switched to night school to study illustration, unfortunately she was never able to achieve a career in this. As a fall-back she began working as a stenographer, a career which she would keep to for the rest of her life.

But Gertrude had talent, writer’s talent. Her first short story was written when she was 17. Not you would think the usual subjects of curious teenage girls with headstrong ambitions but a science fiction story entitled ‘The Curious Experience of Thomas Dunbar’. She mailed the finished story to Argosy, one of the most well known of the pulp magazines. The story was published in the March 1904 issue.

Whilst her career was to be short and not at all prolific she is best remembered for her excellent ideas, many of which were way ahead of their time. By the time of her death in 1948 her pseudonym of ‘Francis Stevens’ could lay claim to being a respected and much admired author of science fiction and dark fantasy short stories and novels.