James Cowan

James Cowan (1841–1906) was an American author and journalist. Reliable bibliographic sources from this conversation identify him as the author of Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World (1896), a novel noted for its unusual mix of speculative fiction, religious ideas, and interplanetary adventure.

Project Gutenberg lists him among its authors and preserves Daybreak, which has helped keep his name accessible even though little biographical detail now seems widely available online. Because the surviving public record is thin, it is safest to remember him mainly through that singular novel and the glimpse it offers of imaginative fiction at the end of the 19th century.