Josephine Humphreys was born in 1909 in San Francisco, California. She wrote stories and sold them to the local newspapers while she was still in school. At age 18 she became a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Two years later she became the editor of the San Francisco News, where she worked until her marriage at age 30
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The next year she joined the staff of the Oakland Tribune, where she wrote both news and feature articles. These early career experiences helped shape her writing style. Humphreys' first novel, The Man in Room 13, became so well received in 1939 that it was made into a movie starring Spencer Tracy and Lana Turner.
Her second book, The Judge's House, was made into a television series starring Robert Young in 1950. Humphreys also published two books of short stories in addition to her novels, which are all historical romances set in California during the 1870s and 1880s. She died in 1972 at the age of sixty-six