A Tourist's New England: Travel Fiction, 1820-1920 (Hardscrabble Books) - Softcover

9780874519006: A Tourist's New England: Travel Fiction, 1820-1920 (Hardscrabble Books)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0874519004 ISBN 13: 9780874519006

Publisher: Univ Pr of New England, 1999

Dona Brown collects representative writings, beginning with Hawthorne in the 1830s, and ending with Edith Wharton and Sinclair Lewis in the 1920s, along with selections from other well-known and lesser-known figures. She organizes them into three parts: the first focuses on New England's much-celebrated scenery; the second explores intimate links between sexual and romantic themes and New England vacations; and the third surveys New England nostalgia.

"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.

From the Publisher:

5 1/2 x 8 1/2 trim. LC 98-48769

From Kirkus Reviews:

Not only has the way of travel in New England changed since 1820 but so has the way of writing about it. In Brown's selections of descriptive tales by Hawthorne, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Dean Howells, Sarah Orne Jewett, Edith Wharton, Edward Bellamy and Sinclair Lewis, among other less well known contributors, we can also follow the advance of clear writing and a turning away from the quaint and curious turns of speech garnered from English models. As Brown points out, only the well-heeled vacationer, for the better part of the century, could travel to New England. Not until the end of the 1800's could shopkeepers, bank clerks, schoolteachers and the like afford short vacations for traveling. Description of such adventures, however, called not only for the language of the sublime but also for gentility, elegance, imagination, and even heartfelt emotional responses to all things scenic, such stances and attitudes adapted, say, from Byron or paintings of the Italian landscape masters. Brown divides her selections into ``the uses of scenery,'' ``pleasure and danger at New England resorts,'' and ``a visit to old New England.'' Among the standouts is Sinclair Lewiss limning of Babbitt's return to Zenith after his second trip to Maine (solo and a failure), in which he discovers that he can not run away from Zenith ``because in his own brain he bore the office and the family and every street and disquiet and illusion of Zenith.'' Pleasure, darkness, and disaster made altogether enjoyable. -- Copyright �1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.