Clarence E. (Clarence Edgar) Edwords

Born in 1856, Clarence Edgar Edwords was an American writer whose work ranged across natural history, travel, and regional nonfiction. Surviving catalog and library records connect him with books including Camp-Fires of a Naturalist and Bohemian San Francisco, showing a career shaped by curiosity about places, people, and the everyday culture around them.

His best-known book, Bohemian San Francisco (1914), is a lively portrait of the city’s restaurants, dining customs, and favorite recipes. Rather than writing a dry guide, Edwords treated food as a doorway into the character of San Francisco, which helps explain why the book still appeals to readers interested in culinary history and the city’s past.

Some online records list his death year as 1941, while others provide only his 1856 birth year, so details of his later life are not consistently presented in the sources available here. Even so, the books themselves make his interests clear: he wrote with an eye for atmosphere, anecdote, and the pleasures of discovering a place through its wildlife, streets, and tables.