The author, Edgar Wilson Nye (1850-1896), was an American journalist who published his humorous works under the name Bill Nye. As a writer and humorist of the late 19th century, Nye, with Mark Twain and Artemus Ward, is recognized as contributing a distinctive, frontier type of American humor, noted for its broad kindliness and hyperbole. He was the author of numerous books and articles, among the most famous of which are Bill Nye and Boomerang (1881), Forty Liars and other Lies (1882), and Bill Nye's History of the United States (1894). ( Wisconsin Historical Society )
