Edward P. (Edward Pruden) Thompson

Edward Pruden Thompson was an American electrical engineer, patent attorney, and technical writer active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sources about his life are limited, but reference listings and historical notes identify him as the author of works including How to Make Inventions; or, Inventing as a Science and an Art and Roentgen Rays and Phenomena of the Anode and Cathode.

His best-known scientific book appeared in 1896, soon after the discovery of X-rays. Later commentary describes it as one of the earliest American publications on the subject, and notes that Thompson worked in New York as both an electrical engineer and a patent attorney. That combination of legal, technical, and practical experience helps explain the hands-on tone of his writing.

Available biographical records indicate that he was born in 1856 and died in 1942. Even where the personal details are sparse, his surviving books still capture a moment when invention was becoming a modern profession and new electrical discoveries were opening up an entirely new world.