The Twenty-Fifth Man: The Strange Story of Ed Morrell, the Hero of Jack London's "Star Rover''

Purportedly autobiographical Western adventures. Jack London held the author in high regard as he credited Morrell with helping him develop his masterpiece, 'THE STAR ROVER'. A foreword by Arizona Governor George W. P. Hunt and an introduction by Dr. Raymond S. Ward, Montclair, New Jersey are quite revealing about the torture and sufferings of the author while imprisoned at San Quentin, California. Strangely, the book concludes with a 13-page proposal for prison reform, including; the elimination of the jury system, replacing District Attorneys with "a Public Investigator and a Public Defender to determine the guilt or innocence of the accused," a ban on all "narcotic drugs", sending all lawbreakers to "Industrial Training Centers" where they'd be paid the standard, non-prison wage so they could be self-sufficient, etc. Morrell had helped Sontag escape from jail and became a hunted man with him as an accomplice to the Evans-Sontag gang that robbed the Southern Pacific Railroad in California's San Joaquin Valley in the 1890s. The robberies were in retribution for the railroad's treatment of local ranchers in the valley. Morrell was sentenced to life imprisonment in Folsom State Prison in 1894. Eventually transferred to San Quentin -- where he was kept for five years in solitary confinement in a dungeon -- he was pardoned in 1908." Author Jack London championed his case, and Morrell became a frequent guest at London's ranch in Glen Ellen, Calif. London also used Morrell as the basis for a character in his 1915 novel "The Star Rover."