Harry Castlemon

Harry Castlemon was the pen name of Charles Austin Fosdick (1842–1915), an American writer of adventure books for boys. Born in Randolph, New York, he served in the Union navy on the Mississippi during the Civil War, an experience that fed his popular Gunboat series about the young hero Frank Nelson. Over a long career he published some sixty books in series with titles such as Rocky Mountain, Sportsman's Club, Boy Trapper and Roughing It, full of hunting, frontier life, soldiers and outdoor adventure, mixed with plain lessons in courage and honesty. Generations of American boys grew up reading them.