Born in Minneapolis in 1883, Gertrude Barrows Bennett was the first major female writer of Science Fiction and an acknowledged inventor of the "Dark Fantasy." Originally, Barrows hoped to become an illustrator. However, those dreams were dashed by her need to support her family following the death of her father in 1892. As a stenographer, she married the explorer Stewart Bennett in 1909. A year later, Bennett never returned following a tropical storm wiping out his latest expedition. With a daughter to raise, Barrows Bennett returned to stenography to make ends meet.
After World War I ended, Barrows Bennett was left to look after her mother. Unable to work outside the home, Barrows Bennett became the writer Francis Stevens. Composing short stories and novels between 1917-1920, Stevens' first tale was published in The Argosy when she was just 17. As Stevens focused on her Edgar Allan Poe-like ability to build suspense, she demonstrated a fascination with early dystopian writing. 1917's "The Nightmare" finds disaster survivors stranded on a faraway island where evolution is taking a horrific and different course. Her 1918 novel, "The Citadel of Fear" focuses on an undiscovered Aztec city found during a WWI campaign. As her storytelling became more dramatic and left elements up to scientific manipulation and the supernatural, 1919's "The Heads of Cerberus" is remembered as Barrows Bennett/Stevens' first foray into true Science Fiction.
"Cerberus" actually opens more like a mystery novel than pulp-published SciFi. Barrows Bennett/Stevens is a polite almost Dickensian narrator. Her flowing prose acts as a distraction from some sinister behavior. As Robert Drayton comes to consciousness, we discover his head bleeding and an open safe. Since Drayton is necessarily cognizant of the events around him, he runs away and hides from another intruder. Before you know it, we discover that Drayton has entered the apartment of a friend as has the jocular Irishman Terry Trenmore. Two parties, one robbery, certainly places us at an interesting starting point.
While they are friends, Trenmore and Drayton do not know each other as well as we think, so we learn that Drayton had his life as a lawyer destroyed by a dastardly corporation (soon to be a trope in a lot of SciFi) and Trenmore makes an optimistic, yet questioning companion. Soon, Barrows Bennett/Stevens even quashes out curiosity about the opening criminal act as Trenmore excitedly talks about a major find he recently acquired at an auction.
Said to have been carved by Benvenuto Cellini for his patron, the Duke of Florence. Its contents have never been examined. The legend runs, however, that the gray dust within it was gathered from the rocks at the gate of Purgatory, by the poet Dante, and that it was the dust that the duke required the vial.
Trenmore's new possession is the subject of much excitement, and not only because it was a "genuine Cellini." Almost immediately, Trenmore is dogged by a man who will pay him enormous sums for the vial capped by a three-headed dog. The amounts get higher and the revelation that many on the list of previous owners have met with their demise. Still, Trenmore holds on to it for its aesthetic value, strangely never thinking about the "dust" contained within. Finally, Drayton convinces him to open it and examine the contents. In a whirl of dust and smoke, Trenmore disappears leaving behind only his cigar burning away.
Drayton goes to find Trenmore's younger sister, 17-year-old Viola to first verify that her brother has disappeared into thin air and examine the mysterious magic dust. Carefully unstoppering the container, the dust spills out again and Drayton and Viola now vanish into the nether world. When they regain consciousness, we discover they are in a completely different realm called Ulithia. While they find Terry here, walking back through the hallowed Gate of the Moon lands them back in their home of Philadelphia...in 2118.
Two hundred years into the future, Philadelphia is a totalitarian state where citizens regularly fight in a pit that once was the mighty City Hall, and the government (now known as Penn Service) reigns over a city once synonymous with freedom with an autocratic fist. Barrows Bennett/Stevens is amusing in a vision of the future with cars still on the street and movies in theatres, but manages to predict a second World War and place our trio of travelers in a hotel room where you guessed it - they are robbed once again!
Sadly, Barrows Bennett/Stevens quit writing when her mother passed away in 1920. Her works were seen by several as successful in the nascent version of Pulp/SciFi market. However, she was six years early as Hugo Gernsback founded "Amazing Stories" and solidified the genre of Science Fiction in 1926. Just a year earlier, at the height of its circulation (nearly 400,000 readers,) The Argosy's publisher, Frank Munsey died of appendicitis. Amazing Stories would continue to published until 2022. Gertrude Barrows Bennett tried one more time to write for "Weird Tales" in 1923, she would never receive proper recognition until her works were rediscovered after she died in 1948. Today, she remains the first female Science Fiction published writer.
