Lucia Chamberlain (February 16, 1882 – December 3, 1978) was an American novelist. Her 1909 book The Other Side of the Door was the basis of a 1916
film of the same name, and her 1917 story The Underside formed the basis of the 1920 film Blackmail.[1][2] The 1916 film The Wedding Guest is also based on her writing.[3]
Early life
Chamberlain was born in
San Francisco,[4][5] the daughter of John Chamberlain and Leila Curtis Chamberlain. Her maternal grandfather Lucien Curtis was an engraver from Connecticut,[6] and her mother had a wood engraving business in the city in the 1870s.[7][8] Her aunt,
Mary Curtis Richardson, was a noted portrait artist.[9][10] She and her sister were encouraged to write by Canadian poet
Bliss Carman.[11]
Career
WorldCat lists Chamberlain's genres of writing as fiction, detective and mystery fiction, short stories,[12] and Western fiction.[13] At least two of her books were translated into Swedish and published as Den stulna ringen (The Stolen Ring)[14] and Falska indicier (False Clues).[15]
H. L. Mencken, writing in The Smart Set in 1909, described The Other Side of the Door as: "A mildly diverting tale of adventure, with the scene laid in early San Francisco, and a fiery Latin flavor in some of the characters."[16]
Chamberlain wrote her first two books, Mrs. Essington and The Coast of Chance, in collaboration with her older sister, Esther,[17] who owned an advertising agency in New York.[18][19]Mrs. Essington was reviewed in The New York Times.[20] Esther died in 1908.[11]
^Chamberlain, Lucia (November 1907). "The Love She Gave Him: A Story of an Engaged Girl's Strange Dilemma". Ladies' Home Journal. 24: 20 – via ProQuest.