The chapter of the life of Edwin Booth which deals with his emergence as a tragic actor during his early years in San Francisco is haunted by a friendly but flickering ghost called Ferdinand Ewer, critic. Booth declared to Ewer, many years afterward, that, although many “puffs” had appeared previously, “the first criticism of my acting was written by yourself.” And ever since that remark was printed in Edwina Booth Grossmann's collection of her father's letters (Edwin Booth, 1893), the biographers have hunted for, and even satisfied themselves that they have found, what Ewer wrote that Booth prized so highly.