Frank Norris was an American novelist who was the first important naturalist writer in the United States.

Norris’s first important novel was McTeague: A Story of San Francisco, a naturalist work that tells of a brutal dentist who murders his miserly wife then meets his own end while fleeing through Death Valley. Norris’s masterpiece, The Octopus: A Story of California, was about the economic and social forces involved in the production, distribution, and consumption of wheat. The Octopus was followed by The Pit: A Story of Chicago, and A Deal in Wheat and Other Stories of the New and Old West. Other notable fiction works include Vandover and the Brute, The Third Circle, A Joyous Miracle, and Yvernelle.

The Pit was adapted for the theatre by Channing Pollock in four acts (Lyric Theatre).