New-York tribune., 1911-12-23
MORPHINE ENDS LIFE OF
MARGARET H. POTTER
One-Time Much Discussed Au-
thor of Books of Life" Dies
from Overdose of Drug.
FIRST WORK A SENSATION
Written at Sixteen, 1t Stirred
Chicago Society, and Family
Bought and Destroyed
Edition.

| Chicago. Dec. 22-Margaret Horton
Potter, a novelist, was found dead to-
dav in her apartments in the Chicago
| Beach Hotel from an overdose of NOR
mime which a coroner's jury found was
accidentally taken. For time it was
reported heart disease caused her death.
Testimony at the inquest was that she
Ibad long been addicted to the use Of
drugs. and a few months ago was per-
mitted to leave a sanatorium TO which
she had been committed. She COM
plained of illness two days ago, and her
friends believe that the drug was taken
| bv her in an effort to relieve her suffer-
| ing.
For many years she had been promi-
uent i'm literary circles, and her novels
were popularly supposed to reveal thinly
veiled phases Of society life in Chicago.
! Edwin c. Potter. her brother, secretary
of the Illinois Brick Company, told the
Coroner that his sister, since she left
the sanatorium. had fought hard to con
ouer her addiction. to morphine. lie
said that while he had heard her say
she was tired of life he did not believe
she ever contemplated suicide.
Il never believed what she said of that
nature. | am satisfied that her death
resulted from an accidental overdose of
morphine." Mr.. Potter told the Coroner.
| Nargaret Horton Potter is the third au-
thoress to die under peculiar circumstances
! i'm the last four months on August Il
| Mrs. Myrtle Reed Mccullough. who wrote
under the pen name Of Myrtle Reed,
killed herself with an overdose of sleeping
powdcrs. in her Chicago home. while tenn
| rorarily deranged katherine Cecil Thurs
! rom author of The Masquerader' and
other works. was found dead in her bed
| I'm a Cork drelanD hotel on September 8
She had been subject to faintng spells.
and the doctors declared her death was
due TO natural causes.
MIS- Potter created sensation a dozen
years ago with her novels of Chicago so
cial ufe Some Of her characters were
taken from real life and so thinly yelled
that loud protests arose I'm many quarters.
Her name first came into prominence when
she was sixteen years old, with the pub
Ucation Of her first novel rms po"k was
so startling that her father and other mem-
hers of her family bought up every copy
they could nnd and destroyed the plates
I Dtbars Of her books have been refused ad-
mission TO the public libraries.
Mrs. Potter was born in Chicago in 1881.
! As the daughter Of Orrin w. Potter. the
4 lat. steel manufacturer. she was reared
I'm the social environment from which she
drew so famnlarly for literary material
She was educated in the public schools
and I'm 1897 entered Bryn Mawr College.
hut owing To 10 health was compelled TO
abandon her college career. She supplied
the lack Of it. however. by work under a
tutor in English history and literature
Latin. Greek and philosophy
Wrote First Book When Eleven.
In 1892. when she was only eleven years
old. she wrote "A little hook of verse. called
"pastels i'm Prose" which was privately
printed for distribution among her
! friends. In 1893 she published under an
Continued OH second page.