Frances Fuller Victor

American historian, poet, novelist, and journalist

Frances Auretta Fuller (Barritt) Victor (pen names: Florence Fane, Dorothy D.) (May 23, 1826 – November 14, 1902) was an American historian and historical novelist. She authored the earliest serious historical writings about the Pacific Northwest. Much of her work was misattributed to her editor, Hubert Howe Bancroft.

Frances Fuller Victor, from her final, self-published book: Poems (1900).

Quotes

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  • The beautiful and favored region of the Northwest Coast is about to assume a commercial importance which is sure to stimulate inquiry concerning the matters herein treated of. I trust enough is contained between the covers of this book to induce the very curious to come and see.
    • Obituary in the Oregon Historical Quarterly, 1902.
  • Doesn't a boy forever delight in making a girl cry? Whether it is his sister or cousin or school-fellow, he always has some little feminine victim to vent his mischievous propensities on, with a view to seeing her 'dissolved in tears'; when he adds insult to injury by denominating her a 'cry baby.'
    • Quoted by Jim Martin in his 1995 A Bit of Blue...
  • There should be always contemporaneous recorded history. It is my experience that little value attaches to any other evidence, and that confusion results from admitting hearsay testimony. My whole effort has been to weed out worthless authorities and to stamp out prejudices.

About

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  • I have found Mrs. Frances Fuller Victor during her arduous labors for a period of ten years in my library, a lady of cultivated mind, of ability and singular application; likewise her physical endurance was remarkable.
    • Hubert Howe Bancroft, as quoted in OREGON'S TRAILS: PUBLISHER'S AMBITIONS, EGO PLACE A TIRING TOLL ON VICTOR, John Terry, The Oregonian, January 19, 2003.
  • Her public monument is the work of her pen in her labors as an historian; her abiding memorial, for all who knew her best, is her strenuous intellect, her singleness of purpose, her transparent affections, and aspiring mind.
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