Black Fire: The True Story of the Original Tom Sawyer--and of the Mysterious Fires That Baptized Gold Rush-Era San Francisco

The first biography of the little-known real-life Tom Sawyer, told through a harrowing account of Sawyer's involvement in the hunt for a serial arsonist who terrorized mid-nineteenth century San Francisco.

When San Francisco Daily Morning Call reporter Mark Twain met Tom Sawyer in 1863, he was seeking a subject for his first novel. He learned that Sawyer was a volunteer firefighter, local hero, and a former “Torch Boy,” racing ahead of hand-drawn fire engines at night carrying torches to lig...