Louis E. Jackson

Louis E. Jackson was an American writer remembered for A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang, With Some Examples of Common Usages, published in 1914. The book was created to explain the language of the criminal underworld in clear, practical terms, and it was presented as a useful reference for law officers, reporters, and other readers trying to understand that world.

The book was issued with assistance from C. R. Hellyer of the City Detective Department in Portland, Oregon, which ties Jackson's best-known work closely to Portland's police and civic life. Today, the book stands out less as a conventional literary work than as a fascinating historical document, capturing the tone, concerns, and vocabulary of crime reporting and law enforcement in the early twentieth century.

Available records indicate that Jackson was born in 1877 and died in Portland, Oregon, on January 4, 1922. Even though little biographical detail is easy to confirm, his surviving book has kept his name alive as a small but intriguing part of American linguistic and social history.