The Huge Hunter; Or, The Steam Man of the Prairies

by Edward Sylvester Ellis

"The Huge Hunter; Or, The Steam Man of the Prairies" by Edward Sylvester Ellis is a dime novel published in 1868. This groundbreaking work stands as the first U.S. science fiction dime novel and an early example of the "Edisonade" genre. When a Yankee and an Irishman encounter a colossal steam-powered mechanical man on the American prairies, they discover it was built by a teenage inventor who uses it to pull his carriage through frontier adventures.