Edward Wilkin Perry

Edward Wilkin Perry was an early 20th-century American nonfiction writer whose known works include Rubber, the Handmaid of Civilization (1903) and Bananas: Nature's Institution for the Promotion of Laziness. Records from library and public-domain book catalogs also connect him with Bananas; the Golden Treasure of the Tropics and identify Bananas as a chapter from a larger work, Tropical America: Its Planters and Plantations, then described as being in preparation.

What stands out in Perry's work is his choice of subject. Instead of fiction or memoir, he wrote about the useful things of daily life and global trade—especially tropical agriculture and industrial materials. His books suggest a writer interested in explaining how crops such as bananas and raw materials such as rubber moved from plantations into ordinary modern experience.

Very little biographical information about Perry appears to be readily available in major public sources today, so much of his personal life remains unclear. What can be said with confidence is that his writing survives through library collections and Project Gutenberg, where modern readers can still encounter his compact, curious studies of bananas, rubber, and the wider world of tropical production.