author
Christopher Evans
1847–1917
A Civil War veteran, California rancher, and one-time outlaw, he later turned his prison years into writing. His best-known book, Eurasia, imagines an ideal society shaped by hard experience and strong opinions about justice.
1 Audiobook
Eurasia
by Christopher Evans
About the author
Born in 1847 near Ottawa in Canada West, Christopher Evans later moved to the United States, served in the Civil War, and built a life as a farmer and teamster in California. He became widely known in the 1890s as the leader of the Evans–Sontag gang, linked to a series of Southern Pacific train robberies and violent clashes with law officers.
Evans spent years in prison after his capture, and that period shaped the writing he is remembered for today. His book Eurasia presents a utopian vision of society and draws on his first-hand knowledge of prisons, law, and authority. That unusual mix of outlaw biography and political imagination gives his work a distinct place in American outsider literature.
He died in 1917 in Portland, Oregon. For readers, Evans remains an unexpected figure: part Western legend, part prison writer, and part dreamer of a radically different social order.