Edward Sylvester Ellis was a prolific American author, educator, and journalist best remembered for his adventure stories and historical fiction for young readers. Born on April 11, 1840, in Geneva, Ohio, Ellis moved with his family to New Jersey while still a child. He studied at the New Jersey State Normal School in Trenton and began his professional life as a teacher. He later served as a school principal and superintendent in Trenton, combining a long career in education with an increasingly successful career as a writer.

Ellis achieved early literary success with Seth Jones; or, The Captives of the Frontier, published as a dime novel in 1860. Its popularity helped establish him as one of the most productive writers of inexpensive adventure fiction in nineteenth-century America. Over the following decades, Ellis wrote hundreds of novels, stories, histories, and biographies, both under his own name and under numerous pseudonyms. His fiction often centered on the American frontier, exploration, survival, and historical conflict, with fast-moving plots designed especially to appeal to younger readers. Among his best-known works are the Deerfoot stories, featuring the heroic young Shawnee character Deerfoot, as well as such adventure novels as Adrift in the Wilds, The Young Scout, and The Boy Hunters of Kentucky.

Later in his career, Ellis increasingly turned his attention to history and biography, producing works on figures such as Daniel Boone and David Crockett as well as histories intended for younger audiences. His background as an educator strongly influenced his writing, which frequently combined entertainment with lessons in courage, perseverance, self-reliance, and history. Ellis remained an extraordinarily productive author throughout his life and became an important figure in the development of American juvenile adventure literature. He died on June 20, 1916, at Cliff Island, Maine, leaving behind a vast body of work that preserves much of the spirit—and many of the popular ideas—of nineteenth-century American frontier literature.