Eugene T. Sawyer

He claimed to have been influenced at an early age by the oratory of Hannibal Hamlin, Stephen A. Douglas, James G. Blaine and other local and visiting politicians, as well as by book reading, including dime novels.

[1] On one occasion, Sawyer and Edwin Markham tried to start a new newspaper in San Jose, The Garden City Times, but it failed to attract investors and survived only for eleven days.

He also published some dime novels under his own name, with titles like Manton Mayne, The San Francisco Detective, The Maltese Cross, The Oyster Pirates, The Tiger's Head Mystery, and The Black Riders of Santo, or, The Terror of Wood River.

[6] Given that Dey committed suicide and Harbaugh died penniless, Sawyer is notable for having been seemingly buoyed rather than crushed by the experience and for balancing the serial novel-writing with newspaper work and other creative pursuits.

In addition to his voluminous output of more than 70 fiction books, Sawyer produced at least two nonfiction titles, The Life of Tiburcio Vasquez (1875) and the History of Santa Clara County, California (1922).

I get my hero into an apparently inextricable situation, — bound and gagged on the edge of a bottomless pit, perhaps; then I get up from my desk, walk about the room awhile, light a cigar, then — sit down to my paper and pull him out of danger. ...