author
Edwin Eastman
A shadowy pen name attached to one of the stranger books of the American frontier, this "author" is best known for a dramatic captivity tale that was later identified as fiction. The story’s mix of adventure, hardship, and 19th-century marketing history has kept it in circulation long after its original publication.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Edwin Eastman is the name attached to Seven and nine years among the Camanches and Apaches: an autobiography, first published in 1873. Although the book presents itself as a personal frontier memoir, library records now describe it as fiction rather than a true autobiography.
The work has endured because of its vivid account of captivity, survival, and travel in the American West. Modern cataloging notes also connect it to the world of 19th-century patent-medicine advertising, which makes the book interesting not only as a sensational narrative but also as a glimpse into how publishers used storytelling to sell products.
Very little reliable biographical information about a real historical person named Edwin Eastman could be confirmed from the sources reviewed here. In practice, the name is best understood as the credited authorial identity associated with this unusual and influential pseudo-memoir.