Botts Begins

Welcome to the world of Alexander Botts and Earthworm Tractors, a series of humorous short stories about a bumbling salesman's trial and tribulations selling crawler tractors. His unusual sales tactics send the machines through impervious swamps, murky lakes, and high snowbanks. His schemes consistently backfire but, in the end, he never fails to close the deal In this book, Botts talks his way into a job selling Earthworm Tractors for The Farmers' Friend Tractor Company.

Alexander Botts was created in 1927 by author William Hazlett Upson, and these stories are based on Upson's brief career as a mechanic for the Caterpillar Tractor Company. For almost half a century, Botts was beloved by Saturday Evening Post readers in more than 100 short stories. This book is the first in a series and will be the only publication to present the collection in its entirety, including five Botts stories that never appeared in the Saturday Evening Post.

Alexander Botts and his Earthworm Tractor will charm readers young and old and entertain with innocent mayhem, timeless humor, and twists of fate.

William Hazlett Upson was born in Glen Ridge, NJ on September 26, 1891. His father was a Wall Street lawyer and his mother was a doctor of medicine. Upson became a farmer then enlisted in the field artillery in World War I. After the war he worked for several years as a service mechanic and troubleshooter for the Caterpillar Tractor Company. He learned the art of salesmanship which would inspire his later writing. In 1923, he began writing short stories and in 1927 created character Alexander Botts, who has appeared in over a hundred Saturday Evening Post stories.

Upson married Marjory Alexander Wright and made a home in Middlebury, Vt. He had a son, John Wright Upson and a daughter, Polly (Mrs. Claude A. Brown).