EDWARD SYLVESTER ELLIS

Background

Edward Sylvester Ellis, son of Sylvester and Mary (Alberty) Ellis, was born in Geneva, Ohio.

Education

He was educated at the state normal school of New Jersey, and while little more than a boy he began teaching.

Career

At nineteen he was already a writer, at twenty-two he was married, in his early thirties he was superintendent of the Trenton public schools, and after thirty-six he devoted himself exclusively to writing. His first notable book, Seth Jones, or the Captive of the Frontier (1860), probably as successful as any of the fiction which he wrote later (around 600, 000 copies were sold), was among the earliest of the “dime novels” which glutted America in the second half of the nineteenth century. In Ellis’s own case as an author, it was the beginning of a torrent of similar works. Till the middle eighties he held chiefly to fiction, but afterward turned in general in the direction of history, writing books beyond any patient counting. Where his next work would come from, whom it would proclaim as its author, or what it would discuss, remained always a mystery; he had at least eight publishers, in St. Paul, Akron, and Cincinnati, as well as in more customary centers, and he wrote under at least six names other than his own. His themes were developed most often as adventure and hero stories for boys, for whom he wrote also much inspirational biography, and much history. Pie penned versions of Plutarch and even Thomas a Kempis, not to mention text-books in grammar, arithmetic, physiology, and mythology. During 1891 in New York he edited Holiday, an illustrated juvenile weekly. He wrote for adults a great deal of American history and a number of extended statements about whatever was at the moment uppermost in the public mind, as for instance, Great Leaders and National issues of 1896 (1896); The Story of South Africa (1899); and Voters’ Guide for the Campaign of 1900. In his histories, he was extremely fair in his judgments on disagreements actually within the nation, but internationally he adhered to the doctrine of American preeminence. “The record of no people, ^ he said, can approach it in magnificence of achievement as regards art, science, education, literature, invention, and all that makes for true progress” (From Tent to White House, 1899, P-7)

Works

More photos

• book

  • Makers of our country, biographical stories from United States history ..

    (This reproduction was printed from a digital file created...)

  • The life of Kit Carson, hunter, trapper, guide, Indian agent, and colonel U. S. A.

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • In the Pecos Country / Lieutenant R. H. Jayne

    (In the Pecos Country / Lieutenant R. H. Jayne is presente...)

  • Blazing Arrow: A Tale of the Frontier

    (HardPress Classic Books Series)

  • The Launch Boys' Cruise in the Deerfoot

    (HardPress Classic Books Series)

  • Thomas Jefferson, a Character Sketch

    (HardPress Classic Books Series)

  • Bill Biddon, Trapper or Life in the Northwest

    (HardPress Classic Books Series)

  • The Boy Patrol Around the Council Fire

    (HardPress Classic Books Series)

  • Through Apache Land

    (HardPress Classic Books Series)

  • Cowmen and Rustlers: A Story of the Wyoming Cattle Ranges

    (HardPress Classic Books Series)

  • The Phantom of the River
  • Camp-fire and Wigwam
  • The Hunters of the Ozark
  • The Riflemen of the Miami
  • The Story of Red Feather: A Tale of the American Frontier
  • A Waif of the Mountains
  • Deerfoot in The Mountains
  • The Huge Hunter; Or, The Steam Man of the Prairies
  • Klondike Nuggets, and How Two Boys Secured Them
  • The Young Ranchers; Or, Fighting the Sioux
  • Oonomoo the Huron
  • The Life of Kit Carson: Hunter, Trapper, Guide, Indian Agent and Colonel U.S.A.
  • The Daughter of the Chieftain : the Story of an Indian Girl
  • Dewey and Other Naval Commanders
  • In the Pecos Country
  • Adrift in the Wilds; Or, The Adventures of Two Shipwrecked Boys
  • Two Boys in Wyoming: A Tale of Adventure (Northwest Series, No. 3)
  • The Frontier Angel: A Romance of Kentucky Rangers' Life
  • Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys sic Story of the Sea and its Perils
  • The Ranger; Or, The Fugitives of the Border
  • The Wilderness Fugitives
  • The Cave in the Mountain A Sequel to In the Pecos Country
  • Up the Forked River; Or, Adventures in South America

Views

“The record of no people", he said, can approach it in magnificence of achievement as regards art, science, education, literature, invention, and all that makes for true progress” (From Tent to White House, 1899, P-7) He believed that the normal expectancy of human life is a hundred years, that a teacher should excel in athletic prowess any of his students, and that “the vices of cigarette smoking, of tobacco chewing, of beer and alcoholic drinking, threaten the very existence of the rising generation" (Continental Primary Physiology, 1885, p. 9).

He believed that the normal expectancy of human life is a hundred years, that a teacher should excel in athletic prowess any of his students, and that “the vices of cigarette smoking, of tobacco chewing, of beer and alcoholic drinking, threaten the very existence of the rising generation"

Quotations: “The record of no people, ^ he said, can approach it in magnificence of achievement as regards art, science, education, literature, invention, and all that makes for true progress” (From Tent to White House, 1899, P-7)

He believed that the normal expectancy of human life is a hundred years, that a teacher should excel in athletic prowess any of his students, and that “the vices of cigarette smoking, of tobacco chewing, of beer and alcoholic drinking, threaten the very existence of the rising generation" (Continental Primary Physiology, 1885, p. 9).

Connections

He was married twice: first in 1862 to Annie M. Deane, and in 1900 to Clara Spalding Brown of Los Angeles.

Father:

Sylvester Ellis

Mother:

Mary (Alberty) Ellis

1st wife:

Annie M. Deane

2nd wife:

Clara Spalding Brown