author
George Francis Train
1829–1904
A larger-than-life 19th-century entrepreneur, world traveler, and writer, he was known as much for his bold schemes as for his eccentric public persona. His whirlwind journeys and flair for spectacle helped inspire the mood of the age of steam and adventure.
1 Audiobook
My Life in Many States and in Foreign Lands, Dictated in My Seventy-Fourth Year
by George Francis Train
About the author
Born in Boston in 1829, George Francis Train became an American businessman, author, and famously eccentric public figure. Reliable reference sources describe him as a promoter of clipper ship service to San Francisco, an organizer connected with the Union Pacific Railroad and Credit Mobilier, and an energetic backer of street tramways in England and elsewhere.
His life was marked by constant travel, restless ambition, and a gift for self-promotion. He wrote about his travels and became well known for rapid trips around the world, which later fed his legend and helped link him in the public imagination to the era of Jules Verne-style adventure.
Train died in 1904. Today he is remembered less as a conventional literary figure than as a vivid character of the 19th century: part entrepreneur, part travel writer, and part showman.