Answer:
The Steam Man of the Prairies by Edward S. Ellis was the first U.S. science fiction dime novel[1] and archetype of the Frank Reade series. It is one of the earliest examples of the so-called "Edisonade" genre.[2] Ellis was a prolific 19th-century author best known as a historian and biographer and a source of early heroic frontier tales in the style of James Fenimore Cooper. This novel may be inspired by the steam powered invention of Zadoc Dederick.[3] The original novel was reissued six times from 1868 to 1904.[4] A copy of the first 1868 printing with its cover intact is owned by the Rosenbach Museum and Library, Philadelphia.[5]
