Benjamin Franklin "Frank" Norris Jr. (March 5, 1870 – Oct 25, 1902) was an American journalist and a novelist during the Progressive Era, whose fiction was predominantly in the naturalist genre. His notable works include McTeague (1899), The Octopus: A Story of California (1901), and The Pit (1903). In 1887, Norris went to Académie Julian in Paris where he studied painting for two years and was exposed to the naturalist novels of Émile Zola. Between 1890 and 1894 he attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he became acquainted with Darwinism and is reflected in his later writings. He worked as a news correspondent in South Africa (1895–96) for the San Francisco Chronicle and then as editorial assistant for the San Francisco Wave (1896–97). He worked for McClure's Magazine as a war correspondent in Cuba during the Spanish–American War in 1898. Less