I love working from the Local Authors room of the Berkshire Athenaeum. This packed shelves of this quiet room are a testament to the real literary tradition of the region, far beyond the usual celebrity names, bursting with hundreds of local creatives who published work over the centuries.
One name conspicuously absent from that impressive collection, though, is J. Allan Dunn (1875-1941), a popular pulp fiction writer who published over 1,000 short stories and other works between 1914-1941. In fact, the prolific Dunn wrote a substantial portion of his 40 books while living in the Berkshires with his wife, wealthy San Francisco socialite Gladys Courvoisier (1888-1962).
Some of his works are even set in a fictionalized Berkshires, such as "The Hazard of the Hills," a treasure-hunt novel that takes some inspiration from legends about the Bradley homestead in Lanesborough.
The Dunns moved just next to the Bradley farm in early 1916, shortly after marrying. Gladys was the daughter of a substantial San Francisco art dealer who’d been divorced twice in the previous five years. Joseph Allan was a rising purveyor of adventure fiction living above his means. He came to the Berkshires following scandal in California, where he’d been caught stealing valuables at his wealthier friends’ parties.
That spring they welcomed the birth of a son, Joseph Allan Jr.
Life in Lanesborough was tumultuous for the couple, who did not get on well with the locals. Tensions grew that summer, when Dunn got rid of a baseball diamond on his property that local youths had been using for years. A wave of vandalism ensued.
In November 1916, a planned Thanksgiving visit to Lanesborough from J. Allan’s friend, Jack London, was precluded by the more famous author’s unexpected death several days before.
On July 4, 1917, the assaults on his house escalated to major property damage and arson, and Dunn was arrested and fined for discharging a warning shot overhead of some boys attempting to burn his barn.
To make matters worse, that November a noted concert organist began circulating flyers to neighbors and local newspapers, alleging improprieties between the author and their former maid. A few weeks after that, Grace Dunn, a former wife in San Francisco, came forward filing suit for divorce for desertion, adding bigamy to Dunn’s list of public scandals.
All this time, Gladys was quietly not OK.
In December, she and J. Allan moved from Lanesborough to a house in Lenox. His writing career was surging despite negative publicity. His story “Island of Desire” had just been adapted by Fox into a silent film, and he was working on a script for Goldwyn's 1918 film "For the Freedom of the East.” He also produced half a dozen novels and novellas in his first three years living in the Berkshires, while cranking out monthly contributions for magazines like Adventure and Boys Life.
By mid-1918, Joseph Allan was staying at Pittsfield’s Wendell Hotel, taking their servant couple with him. Divorce had been discussed.
Since the birth of their son in early 1916, Gladys had been struggling with worsening postpartum depression. Twice divorced from abusive husbands, the young mother found herself alone in another failing marriage, and alienated in a rural area that disdained her.
On Aug.10, 1918, a Thursday morning, Joseph Allan Jr. became sick with dysentery. Gladys phoned her husband and begged him to come home to help her. He arrived at 10 p.m. Friday night, ignoring her and going to the bedroom. She spent a second sleepless night caring for her son in his room, and then another on Saturday night.
On Sunday morning, the couple argued heatedly, and she threw a bowl of cereal at him. That much was clear in both accounts, though what exactly happened in the next few minutes was blurry in later testimony.
When Joseph Allan reentered the room from changing, Gladys was holding his gun, preparing to take her own life. He cried out her name. The gun discharged… fatally wounding their son.
District Attorney Joseph Ely aggressively prosecuted the case in 1919, on the premise that the mother had shot her son in a fit of marital anger and jealousy, to spite her husband.
Dunn was defended by attorney John Noxon Sr, who by macabre coincidence, would have his own infant grandson murdered by his son decades later. After a brutally emotional trial and extensive testimony on the stand, an inconsolable Gladys changed her plea to guilty on a charge of manslaughter. She served one year at the House of Correction.
Surprisingly reconciled following the tragedy, the Dunns then lived in Pittsfield several years, until finally separating permanently in 1926.
Joe Durwin is a local historian specializing in research on residential and commercial properties for owners in Berkshire County. He can be reached at info@berkshirehomehistory.com.
