Edward Sylvester Ellis was an American author who was born in Ohio, and died at Cliff Island, Maine. He served as editor of Public Opinion (a daily newspaper), Golden Days and Holiday (both children's magazines). He specialized in boys' stories, inspirational biography, and history for both children and adults. He was a major author during the era of inexpensive fiction of the nineteenth century (dime novels). Because he wrote under dozens of pseudonyms, as well as under his own name, it is virtually impossible to know exactly how many books he wrote, but it is believed to be in the hundreds.