Nothing is known about Edgar S Farnsworth, and this name may be only a pseudonym.
Maturin Murray Ballou (who also used pseudonyms) published several of Farnsworth's
stories in the mid-19th C. in Ballou's Dollar Monthly Magazine and
Ballou's Pictorial Drawing-Room Companion. Both magazines issued from
Boston, a seafarers' city.
Some of the stories have a touch of the callousness and improbability, which were the
hallmarks of Yankee humour. The consistent theme of sailors yarning about past voyages gives
these tales a timeless interest.
A few of the stories were reprinted by Ballou's publishing partner, Frederick
Gleason, in the 1860's, in Gleason's Literary Companion, and also syndicated
to newspapers via the New York Daily News as late as 1884.
Here are the stories:
