Sidney Walter Moss and Oregon's 19th-century literary mystery * Oregon ArtsWatch

"Shortly after 1850, Oregon entrepreneur and politician Sidney Walter Moss claimed that a novel he had written had been stolen by Ohio writer Emerson Bennett and published wrongly under Bennett's name. For the next half century, Moss avered that he had authored The Prairie Flower manuscript, sent it east to find a publisher, then learned that Bennett published the book as his own in 1849."

"Soon after the novel's appearance in 1849, the intense controversy over authorship broke out. Bennett claimed, vaguely, that he had been given a manuscript by a stranger from the West, but that what he had published was his own. To the contrary, Moss argued, the novel was largely his. Regrettably, no manuscript - or edited parts - has survived, and Moss never made clear which parts of the published novel were his and which Bennett produced."

Sidney Walter Moss, an Oregon entrepreneur and politician who arrived in 1842, claimed he authored a novel manuscript that was stolen and published by Ohio writer Emerson Bennett as The Prairie Flower in 1849. Moss had asked his friend Overton Johnson to take the manuscript east to find a publisher. Bennett allegedly obtained the manuscript, revised it, and published it under his own name. The controversy erupted shortly after publication, with Bennett vaguely claiming he received the manuscript from a western stranger but maintained it was his own work. Moss countered that the novel was largely his creation. Without surviving manuscripts or clear documentation of authorship, the dispute remained unresolved for 175 years, preventing Moss from being recognized as Oregon's first novelist.

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