Alice French, Author Octave Thanet

Author Alice French as a young woman.

Alice French never quite fit the mold. She was a proper Victorian lady on the outside, but inside, she had a streak of curiosity, independence, and even rebellion. Under the masculine pen name Octave Thanet, she became one of the most popular short-story writers of the late 1800s.

Her life was full of contrasts—Boston society and small-town Iowa, strict family expectations and literary ambition, wealth and work. She loved art and fine clothes, but she also adored factories, machinery, and the feel of a good workbench. For a woman of her time, she embodied both elegance and eccentricity.

She was born March 19, 1850, in Andover, Massachusetts. Her father, George Henry French, taught at Phillips Academy. Her mother, Frances Morton French, came from a respected New England family.

As a child, Alice wasn’t wild—she was clever, sharp, and sometimes shy. She absorbed stories from her elders and found herself drawn to writing.

In 1856, her family moved to Davenport, Iowa. Then more frontier than city, Davenport had steamboats huffing along the Mississippi and vast prairies stretching west.

That contrast shaped her imagination. She carried New England polish in speech and manners but developed an eye for the rough, lively characters of the Midwest.

Alice studied at Vassar College, then Abbot Academy in Andover, graduating in 1868.

Though well-educated, she faced the same barrier many women did: a “lady” wasn’t supposed to pursue a public career. Writing was tolerated only in modest forms. Serious literature was considered “man’s work.”

So she created a disguise: Octave Thanet—a gender-neutral, slightly foreign-sounding name. No one knew Octave’s identity at first, and that freedom let her write sharper, bolder stories.

Her first published piece appeared in the Davenport Gazette in 1871. She also published “Communists and Capitalists, A Sketch from Life” in Lippincott’s, earning her first paid work—forty-two dollars—and prompting her adoption of the pseudonym Octave Thanet  .

By the 1880s, her stories frequently appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, Scribner’s, and Century Magazine  .

She found her niche in short fiction about everyday Americans—factory workers, farmers, immigrants, and small-town clerks. Her style was crisp, realistic, often touched with humor.

She drew heavily on Davenport, describing factories, farms, rivers, railroads, and voices of German immigrants, Black workers, and shopkeepers. Critics praised her for “local color” and her accurate depictions of customs and dialect.

Stories like The Bishop’s Vagabond (1889) and Knitters in the Sun (1887) won her national acclaim. She was once counted among the most important women writers in America, alongside Sarah Orne Jewett and Mary E. Wilkins Freeman—yet she stood apart. Jewett and Freeman wrote New England domestic scenes; Alice leaned into industry and the modern world, including technical details, tools, and the rhythm of labor.

Despite success, she maintained Victorian routines. She hosted tea, attended social events, and moved in upper-class circles in Davenport. She dressed elegantly and carried old-fashioned dignity—but wasn’t traditional.

She never married. Instead, she lived openly with companion Jane Crawford in a “Boston marriage.” The two ran households, traveled, and shared a life.

She fell in love with Arkansas. Starting in the 1880s, Alice and Jane spent winters on a cotton plantation near Clover Bend. The house was comfortable, in the heart of cotton country. Alice was captivated: Arkansas was colorful, earthy, and full of characters. She soaked up the speech of Black laborers, quirks of planters, and southern life.

At Thanford, she indulged her fascination with machinery. She built a workshop, tinkered in carpentry, practiced photography—and even experimented with early X‑ray work. She wasn’t content sipping tea; she preferred rolling up her sleeves.

Visitors might find her in a starched dress, just back from wiring or woodworking. She struck many as a curious blend of proper lady and practical mechanic.

She maintained a memorable friendship with Theodore Roosevelt. Both admired each other’s writing. Roosevelt respected her depictions of working-class Americans. Alice admired his energy, plain talk, and enthusiasm for industry.

In 1906, Roosevelt visited Davenport during a western tour. Alice, then in her fifties and well established, was thrilled. The president’s carriage toured city streets while crowds cheered. He met civic leaders, gave a rousing speech, and even had breakfast with Alice.

Alice wasn’t radical politically. She opposed women’s suffrage, fearing it would disrupt family life. That view seems strange today, especially from a woman who lived independently and succeeded in a male domain. Still, her stories showed sympathy for the working class and curiosity about people beyond her circle. She was an observer, not a reformer—collecting details, voices, habits to color her fiction.

Over time, her conservative views aged poorly. By the early 1900s, realism and naturalism from writers like Dreiser and Jack London overshadowed her charm. Her stories, once sharp, felt quaint.

By the 1910s, her fame faded. She continued to publish, but modernism was on the rise. Octave Thanet’s Victorian polish and industrial focus seemed dated.

She also wrote for newspapers, where her practical streak emerged. She offered advice, essays, and—even more unexpectedly—recipes.

She loved hearty, simple cooking. Her published recipes for breads, soups, and country-style dishes came with a storyteller’s touch—describing kitchen smells, bubbling pots, and the joy of a well‑set table    .

These weren’t dainty desserts; they were wholesome and filling. Through them,

Author Alice French as a young woman.

Alice revealed a domestic, approachable side. Readers who might skip a Harper’s story could clip her recipe and try it at home.

Her newspaper essays on Davenport life, local events, and social issues were practical and witty. In her Atlantic Monthly essay “The Indoor Pauper,” she wrote with dry precision: “PAUPERISM … is not the grim menace which it is in Europe … the normal, quiet, legally supported pauper … is a distinctly novel figure in American life”—a clear sign of her journalistic sensibility  . Those essays bridged Octave Thanet, the author, with Alice French, the neighbor.

She and Jane lived quietly in Davenport later in life. They entertained, managed affairs, and kept routines. Alice remained dignified, signing letters with flair and keeping her reputation as a lady of letters.

Alice died January 9, 1934, at age 83. She was buried in Oakdale Cemetery in Davenport—the city that shaped her.

Today, Alice French isn’t as well known as she once was. Her stories are largely unread, and her conservative views on women’s rights feel out of step with her peers. Yet she remains intriguing.

She lived openly with another woman when that was unusual. She loved machinery and invention—interests uncommon for women of her class. She balanced polish and oddity, high society and curiosity about everyday life.

In her prime, she was one of America’s most widely read women authors. She proved that fiction could come from Davenport streets or Arkansas fields—not just Boston parlors. Most importantly, she captured an American moment when local color and regional voices offered readers a richer view of the nation.