Frank Norris - Legacy

Legacy

Norris's short story "A Deal in Wheat" (1903) and the novel The Pit were the basis for the 1909 D.W. Griffith film A Corner in Wheat. Norris' McTeague has been filmed twice, most famously as a 1924 film called Greed by director Erich von Stroheim. An opera by William Bolcom, based loosely on his 1899 novel, was premiered by Chicago's Lyric Opera in 1992. The work is in two acts, with libretto by Arnold Weinstein and Robert Altman. The Lyric Opera's presentation featured Ben Heppner in the title role and Catherine Malfitano as Trina, the dentist's wife.

In 2008, The Library of America selected Norris's newspaper article "Hunting Human Game" for inclusion in its two-century retrospective of American True Crime.

An alley-way in San Francisco bears his name (Frank Norris St.). It runs from Polk St. to Larkin St. and is located parallel to and in-between Pine St. and Bush St. in the city's Lower Nob Hill district.