Ralph Keeler

Born in Ohio in 1840, Ralph Olmstead Keeler lived the sort of life that seems made for memoir. As a young man he worked in all kinds of roles, traveled widely, and later drew on those experiences in his writing. His best-known book, Vagabond Adventures (1870), is an autobiographical work that follows his early wanderings and misadventures with humor and energy.

Keeler moved through important literary circles of his day and was associated with writers including Mark Twain. Accounts of his career describe him as a journalist and special correspondent as well as a travel writer, with ties to both San Francisco and the eastern literary world.

His life was brief and mysterious. In 1873, while traveling in connection with reporting from Cuba, he disappeared and was presumed dead. That early end gave his story an added air of legend, but his surviving work still offers a vivid, personal glimpse of an unusually adventurous American writer.