Name Julia Cruger Role Novelist | Died 1920 | |
Julia Grinnell Storrow Cruger (c. 1850 – July 12, 1920) was a popular American novelist who wrote under the pseudonym Julien Gordon. Because many of her books examined the American social world, she was known as the Edith Wharton of her day.
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Family
Born Julia Grinnell Storrow in Paris, France, she was the daughter of Thomas Wentworth Storrow of Boston and a grandniece of Washington Irving.
She married Civil War veteran Col. Stephen Van Rensselaer Cruger, grandson of Stephen Van Rensselaer, who died in 1898, leaving her independently well off. She married broker Wade Chance in 1908; they separated after a year and were divorced in 1916. Cruger, who spoke French fluently, then moved to Paris for several years, returning to New York not long before her death.
Career
Her first book was A Diplomat's Diary (1890); it and the next three novels all appeared first in serial form. Many of her novels closely examined the social world of New York and Washington, D.C., and she was known as the Edith Wharton of her day.