In The Best Short Stories of 1917 Edward J. O'Brien stated that Katharine Gerould's stories sustained "her claim to rank as one of the three most distinguished contemporary writers of the American short story," and he also included stories by her in the collections for 1920, 1921, 1922, and 1925, while including her name on the "roll of honor" in other volumes of this series. Yet today her stories are seldom read.

Katharine Elizabeth Fullerton, born in Brockton, Massachusetts, was adopted by her uncle, the Reverend Bradford Morton Fullerton, and his wife, Julia Maria Bell Fullerton. After attending Miss Folsom's School, Katharine Fullerton entered Radcliffe College, where she earned an A.B. (1900) and an A.M. (1901). She then served ten years as a reader in English at Bryn Mawr. About 1903, she learned that she had been adopted and that the older "brother" for whom she had always felt an extraordinary affection, William Morton...