Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton (1857-1948) was an American writer. She was born in San Francisco and lived in California all her life. She eloped with George H.B. Atherton when she was only 19 and had two children. Her husband discouraged her writing; and the serial publication of her first novel, "The Randolphs of Redwoods" (1882), though unsigned, scandalized her family.