Career
A native of Chicago, Norris worked as a journalist for some years before finding success as a novelist and playwright. His first book was The Amateur (1916). His other novels include Salt (1919), Brass: A Novel of Marriage (1921), Bread (1923), Pig Iron (1926), Seed: A Novel of Birth Control (1930), Zest (1933), Hands (1935), and Flint (1944).
Norris was well respected by his literary peers.
In a letter to Alida Bigelow dated 9/23/1919, F. Scott Fitzgerald advised the young woman to "read "Salt" young girl so that you may know what life B." (spelling is that of Fitzgerald). The Oxford Companion to American Literature notes that Norris" novels dealt with "such problems as modern education, women in business, hereditary and environmental influences, big business, ethics and birth control." He also published three plays: The Rout of the Philistines (with Nino Marcelli, 1922), A Gest of Robin Hood (with Robert C Newell, 1929), and Ivanhoe: A Grove Play 1936.
The Amateur. New York: George H. Doran, 1916. at Google Books Salt.
Or, The Education of Griffith Adams. New York: East.P. Dutton and Company, 1919. at Google Books Brass.
A Novel of Marriage. New York: East. P. Dutton, 1921. at Google Books Marriage.
Short Stories of Married life by American Writers, Tarkington, Cutting, Hergesheimer, Miller, Street, Delano, Norris, Gale, Harrison, Kelland, Hopper, Adams, Butler, Foster, Hughes, Dreiser, Cooper, Turner, Webster, Lincoln. Y.,: Doubleday Page, 1923.
Bread. North.Y: Dutton, 1923. Pig Iron.
North.Y: East. P. Dutton, 1926. Zelda Marsh. New York: East.P. Dutton, 1927.
Seed, A Novel of Birth Control. Y.,: Doubleday Doran, 1930.
Zest. Y.: Doubleday Doran, 1933.
Hands. New York,: Farrar & Rinehart, 1935. Bricks Without Straw.
New York: Doubleday Doran, 1938.
Flint. Garden City, New New York: Doubleday Doran, 1944. Books by Charles Norris in Theodore Dreiser"s library John Rossiter"s Wife.
