Articles - LiteraryTraveler.com

Casa Guidi, Home of The Brownings in Italy

10/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Casa Guidi in Florence, where Robert and Elizabeth Browning spent their idyllic married life, offers us a firsthand glimpse of their lasting passion for Italy, poetry, and each other.

At Shelley's Grave: The Ineffable Calico Cat at il Cimitero Straniero

4/5/2005 12:00:00 AM

So I said, most impractically, to the obliging calico cat with yellow eyes, as we turned to depart the old Protestant Cemetery, that walled oasis of green quietude in the midst of hurried, cacophonous Rome.

Naulakha, Rudyard Kipling's Priceless Jewel

10/5/2004 12:00:00 AM

Vermont was the ideal sanctuary for a writer, at the turn of the previous century, to ply the solitary craft. Southern Vermont, today, as a ski resort with historic attractions, can still boast a more laid back atmosphere.

A Transcendentalist in New York: Thoreau's Staten Island Experience

4/5/2004 12:00:00 AM

Most considerations of New York's literary history involve obvious writers - artists like Brooklyn's Walt Whitman and Manhattan's Edith Wharton.

Caravaggio The Artist's Journey

2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

When one hears the name Michelangelo side by side with the word 'artist' it's quite likely that the first things which come to mind are magnificent works such as the sculpture of David or the Sistine Chapel paintings. Few of us know, however, that there was another artist also named Michelangelo whose works were no less prolific than the original, albeit, not as well known.

Go to Know: Yeats' Ireland

2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

Go to Know: Yeats' Ireland You got to go there, to know there, wrote Zora Neale Hurston. Although this African-American writer does not automatically evoke Ireland's patron-poet, Hurston's words are a compelling command for any serious student of William Butler Yeats.

Thomas Wolfe's Angel

10/17/1997 12:00:00 AM

In the novel, Look Homeward Angel, Thomas Wolfe described the stone statue of an angel, which stood for years on the porch of his father's tombstone shop at 28 Park Square in Asheville:

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings

1/5/2000 12:00:00 AM

Cross Creek belongs to the wind and the rain, to the sun and the seasons, to the cosmic secrecy of seed, and beyond all, to time. So ends the book, Cross Creek, written by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

Senzoku Pond Sanctified, Takashi Atoda, Floating Lanterns

4/5/2005 12:00:00 AM

A reader visits the setting of a short story, not only because it is there but because he is there. Some points to consider before we begin... One: Takashi Atoda is the most important Japanese author of the twentieth century. Two: Atoda's "Floating Lanterns" is a short story of global importance.

Sunrise at Walden Pond

6/18/1998 12:00:00 AM

The morning was a time that offered much to Henry David Thoreau and Walden Pond seemed a fitting place to celebrate the sun's arrival. It was dark on a quiet winter morning and snow lined the side of the road. I began to walk down along the north side of the pond towards Thoreau's house site. The sky was dark and some snow had melted along the trail.

Thoreau Other's Waters: The Concord River

6/18/1998 12:00:00 AM

When reading Thoreau for the first time, a reader might assume that the writer is speaking aloud his mind, giving a voice to his innermost thoughts, opinions and edicts. I came, I saw and this is what I think. Thoreau came to Nature as though he were responding to a call. It was his muse, the very source of his thoughts.

The Frost Farm - The Homes and Roads of Robert Frost

6/18/1998 12:00:00 AM

For each reader of Frost there is a different poet and poem. We can make our own meaning of his work. To celebrate that work we left Boston, MA on a two day road trip through New Hampshire and Vermont to see how the states where the poet lived and wrote, remember him.

John Steinbeck's New York A Home in Sag Harbor

4/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Though Steinbeck is generally known as a California writer, he lived nearly half his life in New York - keeping homes in New York City, and later in Sag Harbor, Long Island. In June of 1925 Steinbeck left Stanford University without taking a degree. He questioned where he might go next: China, Mexico, Chicago, San Francisco?

Still an Inspiration: James Whitcomb Riley's Legacy

4/1/2005 12:00:00 AM

Just east of Indianapolis; sandwiched between corn fields and soybean crops; a few hundred feet from the Old National Road (US 40) rests the James Whitcomb Riley Old Home and Museum. The poet was born in the house on October 7, 1849. The dwelling was originally a log cabin, but as his father's law practice grew, and the family grew, the Rileys replaced the cabin with a two-story home with green shutters.

Bram Stoker's Dracula in Whitby

9/20/2003 12:00:00 AM

"But, strangest of all, the very instant the shore was touched, an immense dog sprang up on deck from below ... and running forward, jumped from the bow on to the sand. Making straight for the steep cliff, where the churchyard hangs over the laneway to the East Pier ... it disappeared in the darkness."

The Accidental British Servant: Leonard Woolf in Ceylon

10/15/2003 12:00:00 AM

When I joined the Peace Corps and went to Sri Lanka in 1997, I took a leave of absence from a graduate program in English literature at Fordham University. I was unhappy with academia as an aspiring creative writer, I wanted to make literature, not analyze it. I had no idea how international development work in Asia could help, but at least it would provide a long-overdue vacation from education.

A Brief Respite: Nikos Kazantzakis on Mt.Athos

5/17/2003 12:00:00 AM

As the thick reinforced door shuts behind me, closing out the secular world, I listen to the silence and breathe in the smell of pine and ocean. The sun has just extinguished itself into the sea and the warm night settles down on the monastery like a smooth blanket.

The House That Jack Built - The Beauty Ranch

8/23/2003 12:00:00 AM

I am ... only just now beginning my first feeble attempts at building a house for myself. That is to say, I am chopping down some redwood trees and leaving them in the woods to season against such a time, two or three years hence, when they will be used in building the house. Jack London Feb. 3, 1911

Walt Whitman And The Civil War

4/23/2003 12:00:00 AM

Walt Whitman was born in Huntington, Long Island on May 31, 1819, the second of nine children (four of whom were handicapped), to Louisa and Walter Sr., working-class parents who were barely literate. Forced by economic circumstances, his father, a house-builder by trade, moved the family to Brooklyn.

From Sardinia To The Sangre De Cristo Mountains: How Travel Influenced The Writings of D.H. Lawrence

3/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Comes over one an absolute necessity to move. If one quotation could sum up a person's life, this opening line from the travelogue Sea and Sardinia may best epitomize one of the most scandalous and autobiographical writers of the 20th century: D.H. Lawrence.

The Harlem Renaissance, Washington, DC And the Rise of Langston Hughes

1/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

It's something of an oddity to mention writers and Washington, DC, in the same sentence; one traditionally associates the city with the federal government and policy-making. But in the years immediately following World War I, one of the most significant social and cultural movements of the 20th century, the Harlem Renaissance, received substantial support from an artistic cadre within Washington, including the young poet Langston Hughes.

Marguerite Duras In Sa Dec

12/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

French writer Marguerite Duras spent some of her childhood in Sa Dec, a sprawling busy town in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam. Here she set much of her autobiographical novel, The Lover. Published in France in 1984 and in its first English translation in 1985, The Lover has since been translated into more than forty languages. In its year of publication it won France's most prestigious literary award, Prix Goncourt.

The Persuasive And Provincial Jane Austen

11/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Jane Austen was a provincial lady who wrote about the provincial society she knew so well. Yet in spite of her curiously restricted life, during which she never married and rarely left the company of her affectionate family, she used sharp wit and irony to expose the snobbery and hypocrisy she witnessed in that society.

A Visit To Hemingway's Cuba And The Search For The Old Man And The Sea

10/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

As the sun rises over the defunct fishing processing plant on the hill overlooking the bay, the backyard roosters settle into a late morning silence. Everyone in Cojimar, Cuba seems headed for the water. Old men pedal slowly along on Chinese-made Flying Pigeon bicycles, fishing poles balanced on the handlebars. Barefoot kids in tattered shorts jog toward the docks where their friends are already honing their splashless back flips.

John Steinbeck's California Connections

10/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

"I think I would like to write the story of this whole valley, of all the little towns and all the farms and the ranches in the wilder hills. I can see how I would like to do it so that it would be the valley of the world. Steinbeck's letter to George Albee, Salinas, 1933

Teaching John Steinbeck

10/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

The novels of John Steinbeck inhabit many bookshelves in classrooms across the United States. High school English classes spend weeks exploring the details of Steinbeck's novels; the complex relationships, the labyrinthine conflicts, and the characters and their ghosts, amid his strong, yet luxuriant language.

Jack Kerouac And The Satori Highway

9/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

In 1957, Jack Kerouac, a French Canadian kid from the mill-town of Lowell, Massachusetts, published his second novel, On the Road, and became an instant celebrity. The book would become a stone thrown into a cultural lake whose ripple would grow to Tsunami proportions and wash across the American landscape. Forty years after its publication, in the summer of 1997, my buddy Dave Robinson and I packed up all we knew of life in the back of a black Ford Bronco and left our hometown for the west destiny highway.

The Scroll Of Jack Kerouac

9/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

And the next item up for bid, ladies and gentleman, is sale # 9652- Lot 307." This is a common introduction heard on a regular basis at the world famous Christie's Auction House when they are about to auction off one of the many items up for bid. James Christie founded Christie's International Auction House in December of 1766.

The Strange Case Of The Jack Kerouac Estate

8/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Jack Kerouac is known in the popular imagination as the harbinger of the Beat movement - a free-wheeling spirit who 'hit the road' in search of a good time and the meaning of life and in the process developed a blazing new literary style. When he died in 1969, Kerouac left an estate valued at ninety-one dollars.

The Frost Place - The Homes and Roads of Robert Frost

6/19/1998 12:00:00 AM

Our next stop was the Frost Place in Franconia, NH farther north on Interstate 93. The home is in the White Mountains not far from the highway. The small white house is on a dirt road on the side of a sloping hill that faces Lafayette Mountain.

The Frost Trail- The Homes and Roads of Robert Frost

6/20/1998 12:00:00 AM

At both of Frost's homes in New Hampshire we were able walk amongst nature which was something Frost himself cherished. Our last stop on the trip brought us over the Connecticut River into Vermont, the place where Frost considered his home base for the rest of his life.

Rest Robert Frost

6/21/1998 12:00:00 AM

Robert Frost purchased a plot in the cemetery of the The Old Bennington Congregational Church after the death of his wife Elinor, and the suicide of his son Carol. He had originally intended to sprinkle Elinor's ashes over the brook at their farm in Derry, NH.

Robert Frost In The Dismal Swamp

6/22/1998 12:00:00 AM

The first book of poetry that Robert Frost published was a small volume entitled "Twilight." Frost published "Twilight" on his own. It was intended as a gift for the woman he hoped would someday become his wife, Elinor White.

The Man Behind the Curtain: L. Frank Baum and the Wizard of Oz

3/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Chances are you have seen the 1939 MGM movie, The Wizard of Oz, at one point or another in your lifetime. But the chances maybe even greater that you do not associate it with L. Frank Baum, the author of the book on which the film was based. In fact, most people have probably never heard of him at all unless they have read his work or were born around the time when he was popular.

A Wasteland of Contradictions; The California Dreams of Nathanael West

9/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

El Centro, California lies sixty miles inside the Arizona border in Imperial County. This formidably-named milieu can pass all but unnoticed astride the whir of Interstate-8. It stands a paradoxÃ?Â¢??a place where agriculture impugns the harsh realities of the desert, where pastoral farmlands defy the ever-expansive urban center to the west, where past and present remain eerily coalesced.

Bertolt Brecht in LA

5/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

I would have never guessed fifteen years ago when I was introduced to his plays, that one day Bertolt Brecht and I would share the Hollywood experience. Of course, there are a few minor details that separate us, such as fame and the urgency that propelled him into this kind of life. But let's just say ... I can relate.

A Literary Journey to Fireland - Tierra del Fuego

5/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Now that virtually every inch of the planet has been charted and tamed, some part of our collective psyche has become bored. Witness the explosive growth of the "adventure tourism" industry.

Graham Greene's Vietnam - The Quiet American

3/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

The Quiet American by Graham Greene ought to be required reading for anyone planning a visit to Vietnam. For more than forty years, this prophetic portrait of the failing days of French colonial rule has been alternately praised and reviled by critics, but still stands as the definitive, though fictionalized account of the terrible confrontation between moral dissipation and dangerous naivete that plagued this tropical nation for so many decades. Vietnam has come a long way from those troubled times.

Remembering the Alcotts

7/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

The New England landscape and communities that Louisa May Alcott both cherished and used as inspiration for her writing have changed drastically in the intervening years. Today, two museums remain dedicated to exploring and explaining the lives of the Alcott family: The Fruitlands and Orchard House.

Permanence and May Sarton

8/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

One of May Sarton's most haunting poems is "Because What I Want Most is Permanence." For many years, this poem was taped above my typewriter and later, my computer. As I was fortunate enough to know May Sarton for the last seven years of her life, I interpret this poem in two ways: she wanted permanence in her friendships, some of which spanned six decades, and she wanted permanence in her homes.

Vermont for Readers

6/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Vermont is a splendid place in which to read. The state abounds with writers and bookstores. We are close to nature and the land; we have long winters; we have the isolation and the time to create. Many famous writers have lived here: Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Wallace Stegner and E. Annie Proulx; poet Robert Frost; novelist and autobiographer Jamaica Kincaid; Nobel Prize-winning novelist Pearl Buck; Rudyard Kipling; and poet and translator Galway Kinnell, among them.

Marjory Stoneman Douglas

7/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Marjory Stoneman Douglas became known during her lifetime, all one hundred eight years of it, as the Everglades' patron saint, primarily because of her 1947 book The Everglades: River of Grass. The book, one of The Rivers of America Series, continues to be in print, selling more than 10,000 copies a year.

Beatrix Potter - More Than Just Bunnies: The Legacy of Beatrix Potter

3/25/1999 12:00:00 AM

Beatrix Potter may be best known as the creator of charming characters like Peter Rabbit, Mrs. Tiggy Winkle and Hunca Munca, but, as is true in most lives, she was in reality many other things, as well. A product of Victorian times, she far surpassed societal expectations of women of her era and class. She was an accomplished botanical illustrator, a sheep breeder and farmer, a wife, and a conservationist greatly devoted to her home, the Lake District of England.

Lorca's Deep Song

7/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

More than sixty years ago one of the greatest poets of this century died. He was also the most famous victim of the Spanish Civil War. His name was Federico Garca Lorca. He was the son of a people that have always fascinated me. After I had read Lorca's "Poem of the Deep Song", I wanted to find out what moved a man who wrote so sadly, yet so passionately about love and death, about life. I traveled to Andalucia, the Southern part of Spain and homeland of the poet.

A Week in Provence - Reflections upon Peter Mayles' A Year in Provence

5/25/2000 12:00:00 AM

Anyone who has read Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence will appreciate the anticipation that consumed me when I had the opportunity to spend the last week of August attempting to live the author's Provencal life in southern France's Luberon Valley. Though I was only to spend a week, my family and I would rent a car and a house in the countryside.

Ovid in Exile

1/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

That the avid traveler is often an avid reader (and/or moviegoer) is frequently noted. It is an observation that surely applies to me. After my passport, tickets and travelers cheques have been have been diligently attached to my person my thoughts turn to what I will be reading on my trip. The books can be history, biography, or fiction, but there is one requirement: they must be by or about some place or someone where I am traveling.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Short Period of My Life's Happiness at Charmettes

11/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

The Savoie denotes both a region and province in southeastern France, comprising roughly that area between Geneva (and the Haute-Savoie region) and Grenoble (the seat of the Isre region). Chambry has for many centuries been the capital of the Savoie and the seat of the Dukes of Savoie. Modern Chambry is a city of 100,000, and a stop on the TGV line between Paris and Nice.

John Millinton Synge and the Aran Isles

12/25/1998 12:00:00 AM

John Millington Synge, later author of The Playboy of the Western World, started out writing competent but prosaic works. Then he met with W.B. Yeats, who told him to go to the Aran Islands to seek inspiration. Once he followed this advice, Synge started immediately writing some of the finest dramas ever written about the traditional people of Ireland, Riders to the Sea and The Well of the Saints.

A Good Writer Is Hard To Find: The Search For Flannery O'Connor

3/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

To try and get more from a writer than what you see on the page, depends on the writer and their ability to make you see, and of course your own imagination. When that work is so distinct and the characters so clear, you sometimes think you know something about that writer and who they were. It could be argued that a writer can be found in their words, but a good writer may be hard to find in those words which may often confound the reader rather than betray the writer.

Sunset Grand Isle, LA - A visit to the setting of The Awakening

9/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Grand Isle, a three hour drive south of New Orleans, is on the outermost shore of Louisiana. The drive takes quite some time since the winding narrow road is accessible by only two cars at a time. The slow pace gives you a chance to pass a rather scenic view of bayou life. Small towns, small homes, and bait shops line the side of the road, a land full of seafood restaurants and fishing gear to buy or rent.

Footprints in Cloutierville

6/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

If you didn't know Kate Chopin had lived there for a time, you might never have heard of or driven through Cloutierville with a second glance. Located along the Cane River in Natchitoches Parish in Northwest Louisiana, Cloutierville (pronounced Cloochyville) is approximately 260 miles from New Orleans.

Thomas Wolfe's Dixieland - Thomas Wolfe's Old Kentucky Home

6/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

The Old Kentucky Home, known as "Dixieland" in the novel Look Homeward Angel by Thomas Wolfe, is located at 48 Spruce Street in downtown Asheville. The novel is autobiographical and Wolfe presents Dixieland more as a prison than a home, which has the protagonist, Eugene Gant, by the soul. Wolfe had a love hate relationship with the house, his family and the town.

Rest Thomas Wolfe - Thomas Wolfe's Grave

6/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Thomas Wolfe was stricken with an influenza while traveling in the Pacific Northwest. Wolfe told his doctors he believed that he became sick while on a July 4th cruise to Vancouver on the Canadian Pacific steamship, Princess Kathleen. On the ship, he shared a drink of whisky with a shivering man, whom he would later call "a poor shivering wretch." The next day he became very sick and decided to make his way back to Seattle.

Carl Sandburg's Connemara

7/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Twenty-four miles south of Asheville in Flat Rock, NC, there once lived a Midwestern poet that wrote for the common man. His name was Carl Sandburg. He was a Pulitzer Prize winning poet & biographer, most famous for his Chicago Poems, American Songbag and massive biography of Abraham Lincoln.

Edgar Allan Poe's Richmond

10/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

In "To One in Paradise," Edgar Allan Poe describes his longing for: A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers, And all the flowers were mine. The garden of the Poe Museum in Richmond creates just such a spot where visitors (and perhaps the poet's spirit) can linger.

John Keats and the Casina Rosa

8/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

The "Casina Rossa" or "Little Red House" sits next to the Spanish Steps in the Piazza di Spagna in Rome. An unprepossessing building built in 1725, it blends in with the neighboring three and four story buildings surrounding the piazza. The Casina Rossa is not renowned for its distinctive architecture, but instead for its many distinguished occupants, the most famous of whom was John Keats, the great English Romantic poet.

Scholar, Athlete, and Artist, Edgar Allan Poe At University of Virginia

10/2/2002 12:00:00 AM

In 1826, Edgar Allan Poe attended the University of Virginia to receive the liberal education promised to him by his foster father, John Allan. Almost 200 years later, I visited Charlottesville in search of background ambiance for a novel I was writing about Poe's stint as a college student. Although Poe had only turned 17 just three weeks before his arrival, John Allan's influence with the school's administrators cleared the way for his charge's early admission.

Poe on Sullivan's Island

10/4/2002 12:00:00 AM

On a chilly autumn day in the year of the new millennium, I head my car out of Charleston, South Carolina up the coast, across the river and marshes to Sullivan's Island, now a settled community of mostly year round residents. Meandering, I could turn left onto Gold Bug Avenue, or Raven Drive, or turn right onto Poe Avenue, names commemorating a writer's stay on this little sea island.

The Legacy of Dylan Thomas in Wales

3/29/2003 12:00:00 AM

Since the untimely death of Dylan Thomas in November 1953, the writer's popularity has escalated, especially in his native Wales. In Swansea, the city of his birth, people who are otherwise uninterested in all things literary, flock to readings of Under Milk Wood and engage in lively discussions about it afterwards.

Edith Piaf

7/5/1999 12:00:00 AM

Edith Piaf has always had a cult following. A voice like hers comes along perhaps once in a century. Her sad and valiant life story steals hearts.

Emily Dickinson's Homestead

5/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

As a junior in high school, studying American Literature for the first time, I claimed Emily Dickinson as my poet. I felt as though I alone were given the gift to decode her poems. The rest of my class wanted to read more accessible poetry; they hated Dickinson's verse and were indifferent to her life story. Her use of elusive imagery and fourth-definition choices for words frustrated them but only increased my desire to study the poems more closely. I wanted to understand enough about Emily Dickinson so that I could emulate her.

On Franz Kafka's Trail

7/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

It's no wonder people get confused about Franz Kafka's nationality. A Czech Jew who wrote in German, Kafka was a citizen of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at birth in 1883 and a citizen of the newly minted nation of Czechoslovakia at his death in 1924. But no matter what flags were flying overhead, there was one constant: Prague. Kafka was born, raised and educated from grammar school through law school in Prague. He wrote his stories, wooed his girlfriends, suffered through his tuberculosis and spent his entire professional career as an insurance lawyer in the city...

The Lessons of Youth: Ernest Hemingway as a Young Man

4/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

The year 1999 was the Centennial of the birth of Ernest Miller Hemingway, a writer who was a legend during his own lifetime. He stands as a monument to the power of literature and could easily be argued as the most influential American writer of this century. He was an icon, part myth and myth maker, a genius and hero to many and to others he was a writer obsessed with masculinity, violence and death.

Hemingway at Shakespeare & Company

7/5/1999 12:00:00 AM

For Ernest Hemingway, the walk from his Latin Quarter flat to Gertrude Stein's pavillon at 27, rue des Fleurs, would have been a pleasant one: down rue Moufftard until a left on rue Clovis took him past St. Etienne du Montno Notre Dame, but the sort of neighborhood church where you might stop and cross yourself if you were drunk and it was late and you were on your way home to your wife.

Hemingway in Pamplona

7/5/1999 12:00:00 AM

I've fashioned a makeshift costume out of light khakis, a white t-shirt, and a wild west red bandanna. With me in the line at the bus station are young Spaniards, their uniforms exact: white trousers, white tunics, and the official San Fermin scarf, neatly tied in front and draped across the back. Inexplicably, I'm at the front of the line, a solitary American in questionable attire, and as such am duly ignored.

The Sun Also Sets: A Visit to Hemingway's Grave and Memorial

7/9/1999 12:00:00 AM

It's quiet here at Hemingway's Grave. Sun Valley is filled with late afternoon light and there is a chill in the air. A new red truck drives into the cemetery, parks, and three large men climb out. They come over and ask where Hemingway's grave is. I point to the long stone slab I'm standing next to. It is inscribed: Ernest Miller Hemingway, July 21, 1899- July 2, 1961. Mary lies next to him.

Ernest Hemingway and Key West Writers

7/10/1999 12:00:00 AM

In the mid-19th century in Key West, the cigar industry transformed the island into the thirteenth largest port in the country. To get an education and to relax while they worked, the cigarmakers hired lectores, or readers, to keep them up on the news and the classics. These lectores read in both English and Spanish.

Fitzgerald, Hemingway And The Sun Also Rises

7/12/1999 12:00:00 AM

"Dear Charley - You wanted to know the decision on Hemingway: We took it, - with misgiving. There was of course a great [question]. I simply thought in the end that the balance was slightly in favor of acceptance, for all the worry [and] general misery involved."

Ernest Hemingway and Pigott, Arkansas

9/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Piggott, Arkansas, is a town of just under 4000 residents. Piggott is an attractive town, with lovely homes, and beautiful scenery, but it is an out-of-the-way town, and one doesn't just stop at Piggott while on the way someplace else. It's not off any major interstate, and Piggott doesn't even have a Wal-Mart store.

The Outermost House, Henry Beston's Cape Cod

8/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

When taking the initial walk down the path to Coast Guard Beach in Eastham, MA, one might not have the notion that a deeper understanding of the great cosmic picture could be right hereamong the surf, sand, and stretches of the beach and marsh.

Beethoven in Vienna

8/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Haydn, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms (among others) are symbolized in Vienna not only with monuments but also with museums (two, in Schubert's case: his birthplace, and the house in which he died), but it is Beethoven who is represented most. With several museums devoted to him, some of which contain his own personal effects, there exist in and around Vienna more sites associated with Beethoven than with any other composer who graced the city.

Hans Christian Andersen

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Hans Christian Andersen is probably the most famous Dane in literary history, but his rise from poor, ambitious shoemaker's son to lauded, internationally renowned author was a troubled one. Even today people are still trying to unearth the real Andersen.

To truly understand this man, one must travel back to Odense, Denmark in the year 1805. On April 2 of this year, Hans Christian Andersen was born to parents who had been married for two months and who did not live together until nine months after his birth.

The Romantic Life of Hans Christian Andersen

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Millions of people recognize Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) as the author of over a hundred famous children's tales, but only a few people know the man behind the stories. The true Andersen was certainly not a writer of the happily-ever-after variety. Throughout his life, he was often very lonely--traveling around the earth and meeting hundreds of fascinating people, but never truly finding a person to share his life with.

Henry Miller and The Dance of Life

4/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

The art of living is based on rhythm - on give and take, ebb and flow, light and dark, life and death. By acceptance of all the aspects of life, good and bad, right and wrong, yours and mine, the static, defensive life, which is what most people are cursed with, is converted into a dance, 'the dance of life.' The real function of the dance is- metamorphosis.

Denmark's Karen Blixen Museum

5/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

As you walk through her peaceful gardens and adjoining forest land, the tourist tape plays a piece of her favourite music: Max Bruch's hauntingly beautiful Violin Concerto. You can take your time; pause and watch the birds for whom this area is a sanctuary, or ponder the mysteries of life and death beside her grave. Here a simple stone bears a large but informal flower arrangement. The flowers have been taken from the gardens. It is the sort of arrangement she might have composed.

My Own Walden

2/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

A few years ago, I had a co-worker who was forever being reprimanded for reading on the job. As his customers clamored for their Vegetable Alfredo's and Pork Cutlet's, he hid in the waiter's lounge squinting at a tiny copy of Henry David Thoreau's book, Walden. Although Eric was continually warned, the manager never took the book away from him adding, "I've read it twice." "Twice," Eric echoed in awe. Always one for a challenge, I bought a copy of Walden and joined Eric in his rogue reading sessions, helping fulfill Thoreau's prophecy that readers would "come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour."

Jack London: The American Karl Marx

12/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Called the "Boy Socialist: and the "American Karl Marx," Jack London succeeded so well as a writer under the capitalistic system that he could afford to build a "palace for his pigs," to popularize the sport of surfing, and to show off his bridge of artificial teeth to huge crowds. In addition to being one of the highest paid writers of his time, Jack London also ran for Mayor of Oakland twice and was pushed to run for the presidency -- all on the Socialist ticket.

James Joyce A Portrait of The Artist in Trieste

2/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Trieste, Italy, is on the uneasy border where northern Italy flares out to touch Yugoslavia, with Austria hanging just above it like a storm cloud. It was James Joyce's favorite city. I went there in 1983 to see what 500 years of Hapsburg rule (until 1918) on top of Italian rule had produced. Unexpectedly, it proved to be more interesting as Joyce's city.

Joaquin Miller, The Poet of the Sierras

2/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Called the "Poet of the Sierras" and the "Byron of the Rockies," Cincinnatus Hiner Miller alias Joaquin Miller was also termed a "poseur" and a "farce" during his careers as a 19th century lawyer, judge, pony express rider, newspaperman, teacher, cook, miner, conservationist and poet.

Lord Byron's Castle Chillon

9/3/2002 12:00:00 AM

Surveying Castle Chillon, an exquisite jewel that seems to float on the placid surface of Lake Geneva, Lord Byron may well have exclaimed, "It's a marvelous place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live here."

Lucy Maud Montgomery An Island Tribute to a Great Writer

3/5/2002 12:00:00 AM

On June 20, 1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery received a copy of her first book, Anne of Green Gables, from the publishers, fresh off the presses. Little did Maud, as friends and family knew her, realize the impact her story, and the delightful character she created, would have on the world. Anne Shirley went on to become a beloved literary character and a role model for millions of young girls.

Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind

11/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

Margaret Mitchell admired people who had gumption, people who fought their way through hard times triumphantly and came out survivors. She said that if her novel, Gone with the Wind, had a theme it was survival, "I wrote about the people who had gumption and the people who didn't."

Gods and Monsters

2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

Towering mountains, the Cyclops Coast and the sparkling Mediterranean have beckoned seafarers, conquerors and tourists to Sicily since Neolithic times. By the 5th century BC, the Greek colonies, the city-states called Magna Graecia, encompassed the southern part of Italy and half of Sicily.

Elementary, My Dear Watson

2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

Ferry across the Connecticut River, from Chester to Hadlyme, to a "Once upon a time," kingdom. Perched on the summit of "The Seventh Sister" the highest of seven imposing hills, is the formidable Gillette Castle. Built of local fieldstone, the castle with its tower and turrets, reigns over the lower Connecticut River Valley like a medieval fortress on the Rhine.

The Maltese Falcon

10/25/2005 12:00:00 AM

I should start by saying that I am not predisposed to pulling off heists in broad daylight (or at night, for that matter). But there the black bird The Maltese Falconstood, just inches in front of me. It was one of 62 artifacts that made up the exhibit The Maltese Falcon: An American Classic at 75 held at the San Francisco main library.

Mark Twain in Unionville, Nevada

2/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

In the middle of a driving snowstorm in the winter of 1861, a ragtag bunch of prospectors arrived in Unionville, Nevada. They built a rough shelter into the side of the Humboldt Mountain and topped it with a canvas roof leaving an opening to allow for the escape of the smoking sagebrush they burned for warmth, when they could get it. It was an effective system, fueled by Indians hiking past the primitive structure laden with brush, which they generously shared.

Places Where Hemingway Fished in Michigan

11/15/2005 12:00:00 AM

One of the first streams Hemingway fished was School Creek, not far from Walloon Lake. As his skill with a fly rod improved and he became older, he would venture to other streams on weekends. These weekend excursions were also camping trips. He would pack his tent, a change of clothes, some food and be on his way. His transportation was his thumb since he hitchhiked and walked where he wanted to go.

Michelangelo, The Flower of Florence

6/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

The city of Florence, Italy, is the unmistakable home of the great painter, architect, and sculptor, Michelangelo Buonarroti, known today simply as Michelangelo. The second of five sons to Ludovico di Buonaorotto Simoni, he was born in 1475 in the nearby village of Caprese but always considered himself a "son of Florence." Today, one need not look long or hard to witness Michelangelo's influence on the city. His tomb is displayed prominently alongside those of Machiavelli, Galileo, and Rossini, and many of his most famous works of sculpture are housed throughout Florence - including, the magnificent statue of David.

Norman Rockwell's Cover Story

7/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

Norman Rockwell produced 4,000 works during his lifetime, yet his popularity is based on the covers he produced for The Saturday Evening Post, published by the Curtis Publishing Company in Philadelphia.

Nathaniel Hawthorne: Hawthorne's Struggle and Romance with Salem

11/16/2001 12:00:00 AM

Nathaniel Hawthorne called himself a writer of romances, allegorical tales of times long past with supernatural overtones. Yet many of the stories he wrote came right out of the pages of his own family history in Salem, Massachusetts. Hawthorne was still struggling to relieve himself of the heavy psychic burden of his family's past.

Nella Larsen - Discovering Parallels to Nella Larsen

8/1/1998 12:00:00 AM

Nella Larsen was a Harlem Renaissance novelist, a triumph in a day and age that neither supported her gender nor humanized her race. For contemporary writers, her life and times represent an age when African American female artists are looking for a safe haven. Larsen is an anchor to calm the stormy seas of a new literary renaissance.

Pablo Neruda's Isla Negra

9/1/2001 12:00:00 AM

"A Single Drop Lucid and Heavy." A French admirer of Pablo Neruda visits his Isla Negra in Chile Finally, I made it to Isla Negra.

Rokeby and The Robinson Family

7/20/1999 12:00:00 AM

Rokeby in Ferrisburgh, Vermont, is first on my list for high quality, fascinating small house museums in my state for a number of reasons. It's near my home; it's a beautiful late eighteenth century Vermont cape house; and it was home to a writer, Rowland Evans Robinson, and several painters, including his daughter, Rachael Robinson Elmer, nationally-known for her postcard designs.

Robert Louis Stevenson and Western Samoa

1/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

Western Samoa-still not a big tourist destination-claims the largest proportion of full-blooded Polynesians in the world. At last count there were 162,000 of them, a collection of robust, often tattooed, sometimes obese, lava lava clad folks who live on the two main islands of Savai'i, and Upolu.

An Encounter with William Stafford

7/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

A life that gives rise to 51 books in the short span of 79 years can certainly be regarded as literary. William Stafford lived such a life. But Stafford was also a man who refused to occupy a literary pulpit for the sake of preaching to the masses. Stafford's life stood for a quieter way, a daily ritual of writing that produced not only a legacy of remarkable poems but also a way of thinking about the process that creates poems.

William Shakespeare's Globe Theater

11/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

A crowd of twentieth century "groundlings" stands in the open yard of the new Globe Theatre in Bankside, London. We've paid five pounds approximately $8.50 to see a performance of The Life of Henry the Fift (Henry V.) In the early 1600s, at the first Globe Theatre Shakespeare's "Wooden O," groundlings (commoners) paid one English penny.

Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Life

11/1/2000 12:00:00 AM

Zora Neale Hurston was the fifth of eight children born to John Hurston, a carpenter, and Lucy Potts Hurston, a former schoolteacher. Hurston grew up in Eatonville, a small town 10 miles northeast of Orlando, Florida. Hurston frequently fudged her birthdate as 1901, but most scholars believe she was born in 1891.

Hemingway in the Snow

7/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Hemingway's tracks in the snow are easy to follow. This was the Hemingway of the 20's. Back from the Great War, Hemingway was still on his way. A reporter based in Paris for the Toronto Star, a roving correspondent writing down what he saw in typical staccato sentences; he was juggling a vast appetite for life and a tiny budget.

The Longfellow House

10/1/2004 12:00:00 AM

He was a young 30-year-old professor about to start his teaching career at Harvard. So it was that Henry Wadsworth Longfellow knocked at the door of 105 Brattle Street in Cambridge, MA to see the widow Craigie about a room to rent.

Poe's Philadelphia Experience

10/1/2002 12:00:00 AM

By the scene is a vacant old house in the center of a bustling city. A cold chill follows you in before you can even shut the heavy door. There are no furnishings, only a barren fireplace of cold brick. The ambiance gives off the feeling of ice. The paint is desperately trying to peel completely away from the wall, and the bare wooden floors creek beneath your feet.

Charles Lutwidge Dodgson (Lewis Carroll) in Oxford

2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

Literary Oxford Oxford, the City of Dreaming Spires, is undoubtedly one of the jewels in England's crown. Its striking mix of architectural styles, academic atmosphere, and peaceful gardens and river walks make it the perfect place to pause and view England as it was meant to be. But for the literary traveler, Oxford is more than just Olde England, it is a true gem, and at just forty-five minutes from London by train, it is an absolute must-see.

D. H. Lawrence Revisted

2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

The lonely desert mesas stretched to a line of mountains etched on the stark blue horizon. At an elevation of 7,000 feet the morning air was crisp and cool, even though it was July in New Mexico. I was alone in front of a little shrine that reminded me of a country chapel. It seemed an appropriate metaphor considering whose ashes were buried there -- author D. H. Lawrence, the "priest of love."

Sylvia Plath and Winthrop-By-The-Sea

2/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

During her early years, Sylvia Plath lived in a number of places in Massachusetts. Of her youthful residences, none is more bleakly picturesque than Winthrop-By-The-Sea and the adjacent Point Shirley. It is a fitting childhood home for a poet whose words are more intensely chilling than almost any other.

Yasnaya Polyana Home of Leo Tolstoy

1/13/2006 12:00:00 AM

As the Yorkshire surroundings of Emily Bronte's birthplace influenced Wuthering Heights, and Charlotte Bronte's hardships at a stern high school fed her with the image of Lowood in Jane Eyre, so too Tolstoy's oeuvre fed on the characters and landscape of his estate. The writer said, I cannot imagine Russia, or my relationship to her, without Yasnaya Polyana.

Yasnaya Polyana (which means Beautiful Meadow in English) was where Tolstoy was born on August 28, 1828 into the landowning gentry of pre-revolutionary Russia.

Malabar Farm State Park: Louis Bromfield Comes Home Again

3/20/2006 12:00:00 AM

As a writer myself, I found it a refreshing experience to take some time to visit a place that was once the grand home and farmland of a writer from an era so long passed. Malabar Farm State Park is the place I speak of. It's located in Lucas, Ohio, roughly 70 miles northeast of Columbus.

The Remains of a Dream: Alexander Pope's Villa at Twickenham

4/3/2006 12:00:00 AM

For a common tourist, nowadays, Twickenham, part of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, may mean nothing but a nice little spot just outside the confused threads of the big city. Yet, it undoubtedly strikes the imagination of the modern literary traveller searching for evocative paths, for this smart town is deeply steeped in eighteenth century literary memories and full of that unexcelled, refined spirit of the Augustan Age which still emanates from the remains of ancient rural England.

Robert Louis Stevenson - Always in Edinburgh

4/23/2006 12:00:00 AM

In the 19th Century, poverty and disease were rife throughout Edinburgh's Old Town. Cobbled streets and narrow lanes harboured the dangerous and the delinquents; vagrants and beggars were aplenty and the threat of feces falling from the slums above, always a possibility.

O'Henry and The Gift of the Magi

4/24/2006 12:00:00 AM

Do you remember the first time reading O'Henry's The Gift of the Magi? Do you recall the lump in your throat when the hero, Jim, sold his only valuable possession, his watch, to buy a set of jeweled combs to decorate Della's long beautiful hair? And the tears that rolled down your cheeks when you read that she sold the one luxurious thing she had, her magnificent hair, to buy a chain for his watch. How wonderful to love so deeply; how glorious to be loved so much.

Alexandre Dumas and Monte-Cristo

5/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

"Ah! Monte-Cristo is one of the most delicious follies ever made. It is the most royal bonbonnire that exists! wrote Honor Balzac, describing the dazzling chteau his flamboyant literary rival, Alexandre Dumas, had just built. One could become madly in love with this monument, like one loves the moon when one is young, journalist and novelist Lon Gozlan wrote.

At Home With Virginia Woolf

4/23/2006 12:00:00 AM

In the final entry of her diary on 24th March 1941, Virginia Woolf left no clues to her impending suicide. Four days later she left Monk's House, in the Sussex village of Rodmell, and took her last walk along the pathway that runs beside the tranquil River Ouse, (pronounced: ooze) Her walking stick was recovered first, discarded on the edge of the river bank. Three weeks later, on 18th April, her drowned body was retrieved.

George Sand: Her Majorcan Winter of Discontent

5/6/2006 12:00:00 AM

Never before-and possibly never since-has a Mediterranean island inspired as much enmity as did the Spanish isle of Majorca for prolific French writer and protofeminist George Sand during the inhospitable winter of 1838. Her ill-fated stay there, which later became the subject of her book Winter in Majorca, was to have deleterious and far-reaching consequences for both the novelist and her famous companion, composer Fredric Chopin.

Times of Toil, Tales of Terror: Poe's Philadelphia

5/21/2006 12:00:00 AM

Trekking Spring Garden Street jungle-puddle traffic north of Philadelphia's Historical District in map-wandered May afternoon light, one arrives at 530-532 Seventh Street, the only standing structure remaining of Edgar Allan Poe's five Philadelphia residences, this one complete with brass knocker and, of all things, United States park rangers patches, caps, and all, designated as a national park site in 1978. Although Boston, Baltimore and New York City housed he and his, throughout his thirty-eight years, this Philadelphia address was Poe's most prolific hearth and home.

Tennyson County, A Visit with Alfred Lord Tennyson

7/12/2006 12:00:00 AM

Historic Lincolnshire, popularly known as "Tennyson County", is a beguiling mixture of rolling hills (The Wolds) and fenland, scattered with old towns and villages, and defined on its eastern side by miles of golden sands bordering the North Sea.

Spring Pools and Clock Towers: Robert Frost, Michigan's Poet-in-Residence

6/23/2006 12:00:00 AM

Robert Frost, four time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, is said by some to have been the most widely read and continually anthologized American poet of the Twentieth Century. He won Pulitzers for New Hampshire (1923), Collected Poems (1930), A Further Range (1936), and A Witness Tree (1942). No other American poet has received that number of Pulitzer Prizes for their poetry or received such a high number of accolades from universities and foundations.

Jack London's Korea

7/15/2006 12:00:00 AM

In the ways that some writers are remembered for their writings and ramblings in certain corners of the earth, Jack London's name evokes images of the Yukon, California locales, and the South Seas. Yet one of London's most adventurous forays abroad is a small footnote in his literary achievements. London covered the Russo-Japanese War as a correspondent in Korea.

Washington Irving, The Quintessential New York Writer

10/3/2006 12:00:00 AM

"I thank God I was born on the banks of the Hudson!" wrote the "Father of the American Story" late in life. Never had a writer been so affected by a setting as Washington Irving was by the Hudson Valley of New York State. The old Dutch country pays homage to Irving. From the Rip Van Winkle Bridge at the foothills of the Catskill Mountains to the town of Irvington south of Sleepy Hollow, reminders of his fables permeate the countryside. Mountains, lakes, and rivers were his "allies", the Catskills, his muse.

The Short Life of Rupert Brooke

11/13/2006 12:00:00 AM

On the Greek Island of Skyros, its shores lapped with Byron's "wine-dark sea", is a lonely grave. Buried here is Rupert Chawner Brooke - writer, poet and playwright. Strikingly good-looking, he was described by the Irish poet W.B. Yeats as "the most handsome young man in England."

The Spell of the Yukon: Jack London and the Klondike Gold Rush

7/18/2006 12:00:00 AM

When the steamer, Portland, docked in Seattle on July 17, 1897, people were just sitting down to their breakfasts, unaware that this day would be any different from the one before. An enterprising reporter for the Post-Intelligencer knew differently. He had already been on board the Portland and he knew that she carried two tons of gold from the Canadian northwest. GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! GOLD! screamed the headline that morning, in a cry that would soon be echoed around the world. It was welcome news to a nation grappling with a severe economic recession.

Rosslyn Chapel

7/31/2006 12:00:00 AM

Though I had held my breath through nearly all of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code, it was admittedly strange that I held my breath as I stepped through the arched doorway of Rosslyn Chapel. After all, as Da Vinci's code had led Langdon to Rosslyn, Langdon's adventures had brought my family and me here to Roslin, Scotland. Intrigued and as caught up in the mysteries of cryptex, code, and location as Langdon himself, we had journeyed to Scotland to see the Chapel ourselves.

Conjuring Yeats

8/7/2006 12:00:00 AM

f you are searching for signs of fairies, jet to Ireland, and follow the western trail of poet and mystic W.B. Yeats, as I did with my daughter this past August. Over a century ago, Yeats published his first edition of The Celtic Twilight, a collection of magical and mythological tales gleaned from the country people of County Sligo in western Ireland.

Zora's Immortal South

1/31/2007 12:00:00 AM

Eatonville, Florida has one main street, with dusty sidewalks, drooping Spanish moss, and sad, tin-roofed houses of faded stucco. Blink and you may miss it: the total land area is just about a mile. Yet for admirers of Zora Neale Hurston and her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Eatonville is the home of tall tales, true love, and a vibrant culture that seeps from real-life onto the page.

E. B. White: A Shy Man Fond of Creatures

9/8/2006 12:00:00 AM

Like many other famous writers, E.B. White (1899-1985) was a shy man. He avoided most parties and public appearances. He didn't want people to find him or his home in North Brooklin, Maine. In his latter days, he stopped giving interviews. In 1977, he convinced the reporter Herbert Mitgang to write, "To discourage visitors, we hereby report that he lives in 'a New England coastal town,' somewhere between Nova Scotia and Cuba."

Anne Frank: Her Life in Letters

8/16/2006 12:00:00 AM

I first encountered Anne Frank by reading her diary, when I, like her, was a voracious adolescent reader dreaming of future careers and loves. Years later, as a new resident of Amsterdam, I was to experience another, three-dimensional, view of Anne. For the first time, the Anne Frank-Fonds has opened a public exhibit of Anne's letters and diaries and the Frank family correspondence from 1933 to 1942. "Anne Frank: Her Life in Letters" at the Amsterdam Historical Museum, reveals Anne as a giddy schoolgirl who played in the open spaces and relative freedom of Amsterdam.

The Helen of the West Indies: Derek Walcott's St. Lucia

10/2/2006 12:00:00 AM

The prone island of St. Lucia (pronounced LOO-sha) in the Caribbean has been the source of inspiration for Nobel laureate Derek Walcott from the time he wrote the lines above at the age of 18. This small island (only 27 miles by 14 miles) has inspired a lifetime of poetry, including Omeros (1990), Walcott's book-length poem consisting of sixty-four chapters in seven books, each filled with three-line stanzas.

Finding James Joyce - A visit to James Joyce's Grave

9/6/2006 12:00:00 AM

If you love the works of James Joyce, then you must go, as odd as it sounds, to Switzerland. Ulysses, the great novel that changed the shape of modern literature forever, was written in part in Zrich. Even more surprisingly, its author is buried in this Swiss city. I set off to find his grave, but at the end of my journey, I found much, much more.

Jamaica Kincaid and Annie John: A Childhood Cut Short

9/20/2006 12:00:00 AM

One author in particular has dominated the West Indian literary scene for years: Jamaica Kincaid. She was born Elaine Potter Richardson on the tiny island of Antigua in 1949. Located in the Lesser Antilles island chain, Antigua is a small, tourist destination made up of light pink sand beaches. Its cultural traditions are derived from both African and British societies; for example, music and dance stem from their ancestral roots, while at school, children learn from the British English school system, even taking the life-altering A-levels (tests that determine if a student is admitted to the university of their choice).

The Lost Years: John Muir in Canada, 1864-66

9/26/2006 12:00:00 AM

The year is 1864. It is late May or early June and we are standing in the midst of a vast tamarac and cedar swamp somewhere in southern Ontario, possibly on the southern edge of Simcoe County or in what was then the Holland Marsh.

I Am Providence: The City that Made H.P. Lovecraft

9/30/2006 12:00:00 AM

Standing at the top of Jenckes Street in Providence, Rhode Island, I am looking down way down between lines of historic houses. The road is so steep there's a stone wall at the bottom to keep the next car with faulty brakes out of someone's living room. Further away, I can see downtown and Federal Hill across the city.

J.R.R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis: A Literary Friendship and Rivalry

10/1/2006 12:00:00 AM

Oxford--I had vowed to take Dead Man's Walk. To sneak into Gothic-trimmed courtyards. To wander beside the shadow of J. R. R. Tolkien, the father of modern fantasy, and listen for remnants of his voice. I had come to see the dim pubs where he drank up inspiration and to visit the homes where he scribbled The Lord of the Rings, one of the biggest-selling and most-beloved books of all time.

Ilmenau: Walking in the footsteps of Goethe

10/26/2006 12:00:00 AM

The small university town of Ilmenau sits at the edge of the Thuringian Forest in central Germany, taking its name from the River Ilm that flows through it. Though long known for its mining, glass, and porcelain industries, visitors to the town often come for its association with Germany's most famous writer and scholar, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Auvers sur Oise: The Original Impressionist Landscape

11/5/2006 12:00:00 AM

I had an uncanny sense of deja vu when I first laid eyes on Auvers sur Oise thus I could not figure out why it breathed familiarity. I then realized I had been entranced before by much of the scenery, which hung on the walls of major museums and was printed in art history books.

He Can't Go On, He'll Go On: The Legacy of Samuel Beckett

12/6/2006 12:00:00 AM

I found, that the best way to get to know the artist, is to stare at the piercing eyes and cavernous wrinkles that dually dominate his face, captured in the renowned photographs of John Minihan, featured in an exhibit at the National Photographic Archive, in Dublin's City Centre.

Who Wrote 'Twas the Night Before Christmas? A Literary Debate.

12/13/2006 12:00:00 AM

Immersed in the Christmas season and living in New York, I have taken it upon myself to engage in the typical Big Apple holiday tasks such as viewing the windows at Macy's, gazing at the luminous Rockefeller Center tree and ice skating in the park. As we are all travelers each holiday season, whether to Bethlehem, PA to bask in the spiritual lights or far away to Lapland to feed the reindeer and explore Santa's workshop in Rovaniemi, Finland, we know that A Visit from St. Nicholas, a.k.a. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, remains a poem read to little ones every Christmas Eve all over the United States. The presumed author is Clement Clarke Moore, a wealthy professor and poet from New York City.

War Games and Winter in Finland's Lapland: Arto Paasilinna's The Year of the Hare

1/15/2007 12:00:00 AM

Reading Arto Paasilinnas The Year of the Hare once again made me yearn for a proper Finnish winter. I have always relished the Helsinki summer with its constant daylight and thawing temperatures. Therefore when Vatanen, the protagonist in The Year of the Hare, begins his journey through the wilderness during Finnish summer, I cannot help but wish that summer would come quicker.

Holden Caulfield in Winter Manhattan

1/15/2007 12:00:00 AM

Holden Caulfield has generated so much inspirational buzz, he needs no introduction. This immortal character, star of The Catcher in the Rye written by J.D. Salinger, continues to flourish among high school students across the country. Every year adolescents discover the cynicism and intelligence of Holden, a large feat from once being one of the most banned books in the United States.

The Studio Museum in Harlem Presents Africa Comics

1/31/2007 12:00:00 AM

Days of the Harlem Renaissance still haunt West 125th Street with sites such as the Apollo Theater; however, another landmark goes virtually unknown amidst the pharmacies and discount shops of today. The Studio Museum in Harlem has spanned nearly four generations, featuring world famous artists from the American and international black/African-descent community.

Faith Ringgold's Tar Beach: A Literary Review

1/31/2007 12:00:00 AM

Faith Ringgold, foremost famous for her status as a highly influential black female artist, accomplishes capturing the power of a child's imagination in her now children's classic, Tar Beach. Ringgold, who wrote Tar Beach in 1991, was initially renowned for her art, particularly how she portrayed the black female in America, through a series of quilts she called "Woman on a Bridge," which debuted at the Guggenheim.

A Revealing Interview with Terrell Dempsey, Author of Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens's World

1/31/2007 12:00:00 AM

Mark Twain expert Terrell Dempsey uncovers the truths of African American slavery in Hannibal, Missouri, Sam Clemens's hometown, in Searching for Jim: Slavery in Sam Clemens's World (University of Missouri Press 2003). The existence of slavery in Hannibal during Twain's childhood and adolescence was rarely discussed until Dempsey revealed his compelling findings in Searching for Jim.

Finding Mark Twain's Hannibal

1/31/2007 12:00:00 AM

Any modern pilgrim seeking the real Mark Twain will find his Mecca in a little town nestled in Bear Creek Valley on the Mississippi River some ninety miles north of St. Louis. It was Hannibal, Missouri and the river that defines it, where Twain consistently re-returned in his literature.

A New Kind of Renaissance: Touring Harlem

2/6/2007 12:00:00 AM

As I ventured out into the freezing cold this past Saturday, I almost ran back inside, put off by the wind gusts of 15-20 mph. Yet this deemed to be a special occasion, since this was the start of Black History Month and I was to take a walking tour of Harlem, focusing on the 1920s Renaissance period.

The "Easy" Yet Complex Writing of Walter Mosley, A Black Jewish Author

2/15/2007 12:00:00 AM

Although often pictured sporting his signature cocked, off-white fedora, Walter Mosley proves through his writing that he is certainly capable of wearing different hats. Through a variety of genres, Mosley constantly explores black culture in America; noting the growth of a people who continue to redefine their role as "Americans."

An Historical Account Aboard the Delta Queen

1/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Early one evening in the fall of 1996 I received an unexpected telephone call from David Snow, Special Programs Director for the Delta Queen Steamboat Company of New Orleans. David began our conversation by telling me that 1997 would be the 70th anniversary of the Delta Queens construction and initial service on the Sacramento River in California.

Interview with Jerry Sutphin, Expert Aboard the Delta Queen Steamboat

1/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Gerald W. Sutphin has taken his passion of steam boating to an incredible level. Involved in a variety of river projects since opening his company, Visual Information, Ltd, in 1982, Jerry has written and co-produced a series of short films about modern river operations for the Smithsonian Institution. This permanent exhibition is now a part of the Maritime Section in The Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. Over the past ten years, Jerry has become a staple on the Delta Queen steamboat, making presentations and acting as the on-board program coordinator. Currently, he has produced a video history of the Delta Queen named Tested By Time To Become An American Legend: The Steamboat Delta Queen.

Step into Pippi Longstocking's Mismatched Shoes at the Junibacken Museum in Sweden

2/27/2007 12:00:00 AM

Any girl that has ever worn her hair in braids has undoubtedly been called Pippi Longstocking. The image of the impish redhead is one of the most enduring in children's literature. After all, the way her braids stuck out from the side of her head--not to mention her zany socks--symbolized her untamable spirit. Is it any wonder I braided my hair when I set off to Junibacken, the children's museum dedicated to (Pippi author) Astrid Lindgren's characters, during my visit to Stockholm, Sweden?

Robert McCloskey: Alive With Wonder In Maine

2/28/2007 12:00:00 AM

In Robert McCloskey's children's books, Maine is a place where life moves with the shifting tides and seasons. It is a place where a hill thick with blueberries comes alive with curious surprises. Yet it is also a place that requires work, where you need to row a boat to the mainland to buy milk or repair engines, and batten down the hatches when a storm blows in.

Roald Dahl: A Norwegian Lifestyle

3/4/2007 12:00:00 AM

A world renown best-selling children's author of books such as James and the Giant Peach, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, BFG and Matilda, Roald Dahl dominated the children's literary field in his day. Think of Dahl as a modern-day J.K Rowling, yet he was heavily influenced by his Norwegian upbringing. His mother frequently told Dahl and his siblings stories of Nordic folklore, especially of tiny trolls and mythical creatures which could be found in a lush, Norwegian forest.

The Essence of Childhood in William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience

3/7/2007 12:00:00 AM

But the bawls continued, until I, in a moment of desperation, grabbed the first book I saw strewn across my neglected homework. It was a volume of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience--I was supposed to write an essay comparing "The Lamb" and "The Tyge"--ran assignment familiar to many budding young English scholars. Ironically, I began with "Infant Joy," and more surprisingly, after a few more poems, the tears stopped and she was lulled to sleep, looking, in those moments, like a perfect angel. Blake's verses had transcended time to save my sanity.

One Nanny, Hold the Spoonful of Sugar: The REAL Mary Poppins and Her Creator, P.L. Travers

3/23/2007 12:00:00 AM

Equipped with her time-defying umbrella and magical medicine, Mary Poppins has been one of most beloved figures of the modern children's literature canon. The offbeat-nurturing nanny first appeared in 1934 in a book sharing her name; that would be the first of ten books (spanning fifty-four years) by author P.L. Travers. One might be quick to assume that the creator of a literary staple such as Mary Poppins would resemble the nanny herself--or at least have some inclination toward the glowing warmth of Julie Andrews' Oscar-winning portrayal, as we remember her from Walt Disney's classic 1964 film. Travers however, was a much different woman--perhaps closer in character to the Mary we see in the novels--much more of a spinster, but still possessing a creative genius which has survived decades.

The Adorable Madeline: A Parisian Adventurer

3/25/2007 12:00:00 AM

Austrian-born Madeline creator Ludwig Bemelmans penned these words each and every time he begun one of his children's books about this charming, yet tiny only in stature, redheaded French girl. The character of Madeline, named after Bemelmans' wife, carried on in a sweet and innocent in demeanor; however, the author maintained a much darker past. At the age of sixteen, young Ludwig apprenticed in a relative's restaurant, and had an unfortunate dispute with a waiter.

'Bad Boy Poet' Francois Villon in Medieval and Modern Paris

3/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

The first time I read Francois Villon's works, I discovered a world I had yet to unearth, however, knew by heart. One of France's greatest medieval poets, Villon, writes in an old form of French. His poems include countless references to people, places, and events of his time. Sometimes it appears even more complicated than that: Villon occasionally wrote in the obscure jargon of the Coquillards, a gang of criminals.

Shadows of the Da Vinci Code in Southern France

3/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

As it happened, my wife was reading The Da Vinci Code as I was simultaneously absorbed in travel guides for our trip to the southwest of France. This is when the name 'Sauniere' emerged in both places. In the novel, he is the leader of a mysterious religious sect that for centuries has protected a 'Holy Grail'--the secret that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalen and that their descendants may still be alive today.

Gertrude Stein: Hostess of the Parisian Literary Salon

4/4/2007 12:00:00 AM

In 1874 the ground was fertile for Gertrude Stein to become a woman of virile thoughts even in her youth. After having been born in a small industrial town near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, little Gertrude Stein took to a life abroad at age one--crawling, then walking in Vienna, America, and elsewhere in Europe, under the care of her capricious, travel-happy father, her mother, and her four siblings.

Understanding Joie de Vivre: Touring the French Institute Alliance Francaise

4/12/2007 12:00:00 AM

Due to the theme of French month for Literary Traveler for April 2007, I decided to investigate an institution in New York City which is renowned for breathing French life into those already knowledgeable or willing to learn. Before my visit, I discovered that the Francophone, French-speaking, community in the city seems to be quite substantial and love of French culture exists amongst New Yorkers, but procures quiet recognition. Thus I went to the source: French Institute Alliance Francaise (FIAF).

Sylvia Beach's Shakespeare & Company: A Mecca for Contemporary Literature

4/17/2007 12:00:00 AM

When the French bookshop La Maison des Amis des Livres opened its doors on November 15, 1915, at 7 rue de l'Odeon on the Left Bank in Paris, its 23-year-old owner Adrienne Monnier had the modest goal of wanting to share her love of literature with the public. It was the first free-lending library in France, which enabled Monnier to reach people from all walks of life and turn them into readers.

Alan Lightman Interview

5/4/2007 12:00:00 AM

A fascinating and compelling interview with Alan Lightman, the international bestselling author of Einstein's Dreams. Lightman speaks of the contrasts and similarities between the creative and scientific worlds, his influences and how he came to be a writer. He also gives us a glimpse of his creative process and tells about his upcoming book due out in the fall.

Back to Balzac

4/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Most sightseers who venture into Paris' chic, residential Passy neighborhood go there to admire the quarter's lavish Art Nouveau buildings that have risen up in between the typical bourgeois Haussmannian constructions of the latter half of the 19th century. If they make their way to Rue Raynouard, however, they will come upon an unexpected and picturesque anomaly: a modest, late 18th-century country house and garden--one of the last traces of the old village of Passy.

The Opera Garnier: An Eerie Tour of Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera

5/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Like any good mystery writer, Gaston Leroux builds his novels in layers. On one layer, his The Phantom of the Opera is a tragic love story about the reclusive, deformed Erik's obsession for the opera singer Christine Daae. But on the other layer, the book is a celebration of a particular city, Paris, and a particular building, the Paris Opera House.

Alan Lightman Interview - Part 2

5/4/2007 12:00:00 AM

I know younger people and students often feel that if they get stuck on something they're working on, that it's time to give up; that they don't have what it takes, they don't have the talent, they don't have the patience, whatever. But I have found that getting stuck is a very important part of the creative process. That when you're stuck, your subconscious mind is catalyzed and you actually do a lot of very good thinking that you wouldn't have done if you weren't stuck.

An Unconventional Journey to the Library of Congress

5/9/2007 12:00:00 AM

For the last dozen years I have edited a literary travel series. My books collect the impressions, in both fiction and non-fiction, of authors touring through Europe: Hemingway in Paris, Edith Wharton in Italy, Frances Mayes in her beloved Tuscany. For a bibliophile this is provocative work, but the first thing I am asked is: "So, you have to travel to those places to do your research?" And "tough gig" is the customary response.

Privateering the Oceans of History: The Lore and Allure of Henry Morgan

5/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

The cascading waves of the sea have a knack for washing up legends on the eroding sands of time. Perhaps some of the most rogue characters of all time are seafarers--rough around the edges and enriched by the cultivation of bountiful treasures. In a culture so imbued with "Pirate" tales, it becomes difficult to judge which chronicles will actually hold true. The most satisfying swashbuckling stories are those taken from lives of historical figures, mostly with a Caribbean flair. One such figure who constantly reappears is the infamous Sir Henry Morgan.

Sir Francis Drake: Pirate, Explorer, Human Rights Pioneer

5/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

Most pirates, evil by nature, swashbuckling creatures who roamed the Earth's seas, have seldom been portrayed correctly in literature and film. Often seen as the "romantic life," real piracy served as an odious career--literally. It was a well-known fact in the barbaric 16th century that when pirates arrived in port towns, the aroma in the air rose to putrid levels. At sea, atrocious sanitary conditions prevailed. Rats scurried along makeshift beds in sleeping quarters while most food carried squirming weevils.

The Real Life and Fictional Characters Who Inspired J.M. Barrie's Captain Hook

5/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Captain Hook has been immortalized as one of the greatest, most infamous villains in literature. Created by James Matthew Barrie in his play in 1904 and restored for a number of novels and stories in 1911, this character has been making readers shudder from his sinister behavior for over a century. Who could forget his cadaver-like appearance or his melancholy blue eyes that burned a fiery red when he became angry or violent? For that matter, who could forget his hook that was used to menace both his enemies and his crew?

Blackbeard's Terror in the Outer Banks and Virginia

6/3/2007 12:00:00 AM

From his initial privateering mission to his captivatingly violent death, Blackbeard is the pirate whom most remember. Due to his unorthodox yet alluring appearance, it seems as if Jack Sparrow modeled himself physically most after Blackbeard. The ultimate pirate of the New World, he was ruthless, perhaps a bit psychotic, and so feared that enemy crews would immediately surrender upon seeing his black flag of a skeleton with a pirate's hat holding a goblet in one bony hand and in the other a spear which pointed to a red heart and three drops of blood.

Hunter S. Thompson's Puerto Rican Rum Diary

6/6/2007 12:00:00 AM

Hunter S. Thompson was 22 when he began work on The Rum Diary, a novel based on his own experiences working as a journalist in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1959. Not published for another 30 years, the book chronicles the turbulent, alcohol-imbued times of Paul Kemp, a young American journalist working for a floundering English newspaper in San Juan. At the time, many Americans went to Puerto Rico in search of a piece of action in "America's Caribbean."

Mutiny in Robinson Crusoe and Beyond

6/7/2007 12:00:00 AM

Mutiny on the open seas is as common to pirate lore as buried treasure and "X" marking the spot. A story about pirates simply would not be complete without some form of mutiny that typically results in a death or marooning in a desolate region of the world, whether on an island or an uninhabited seacoast. Similarly, the novel Robinson Crusoe, which tells the story of an unfortunate man who is shipwrecked on an undiscovered island for twenty-eight years, employs this typical element of piracy.

Tarzan in Los Angeles: The Legacy of Edgar Rice Burroughs

6/13/2007 12:00:00 AM

When considering which author I should investigate, I figured the best place to start is right in my own backyard. But since my apartment does not have a backyard, I would have to use someone else's backyard. So this brings me to the town of Tarzana in the San Fernando Valley just north of Los Angeles. What makes this place so unique among all other places on this planet, is that Tarzana is the only place named after a literary character deemed so by the author himself.

Traveling With Jo-Ann Mapson: A 21st Century Western Writer

7/9/2007 12:00:00 AM

Filled with lush, literary landscapes, crisp climates and attention to the minute details, author Jo-Ann Mapson captures the heart of the West. Readers travel through the Southwest locales of New Mexico and Arizona, journeying varied regions of California, and finally delving into the wild frontier of Alaska.

Traveler, Writer, Citizen: The James Michener Museum in Doylestown, PA

7/9/2007 12:00:00 AM

Donning Texan-style bolo ties and large-brimmed cowboy hats, James Michener appeared as if he just stepped out of a Western movie. Spending some of his last years in Texas and Alaska, the American frontier meant a great deal to Michener, even spurring the inspiration for his monolithic Alaska. Yet through all his travels and marriages, 3, the writer embraced his roots in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

Strong Pioneer Women: Laura Ingalls Wilder's Western Classics

7/9/2007 12:00:00 AM

Laura Ingalls Wilder was born on February 7, 1867 in Pepin, Wisconsin, the daughter of Charles and Caroline Ingalls. This prolific American woman had a number of occupations throughout her lifetime, ranging from a farmer to a schoolteacher, but it was her writing that caused her to become a staple of western culture. From ages sixty-five to seventy-six, Laura authored the Little House series, which chronicled her life as a western pioneer as she traveled through the Dakota territories, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Missouri, which now houses the Laura Ingalls Wilder home and museum exhibit in Mansfield.

Red Cloud, Nebraska: Willa Cather's Lifelong Muse

7/9/2007 12:00:00 AM

As I drove west toward Grand Island, Nebraska, the psychic battle for my literary allegiance kicked into high gear. Would I continue my personal race to Denver along the s-curve of federal highway 30 and the Platte River, a la Jack Kerouac? Or would I take a roundtrip detour of several hours to visit Red Cloud, hometown of Willa Cather, whose novel My Antonia had left me years ago with a yearning to see the stark beauty of the Nebraska prairie and the frontier town that inspired so many of her novels?

Robert Laxalt's Nevada

7/27/2007 12:00:00 AM

To many Americans, Nevada is a place of decadence and diversion. Considered shameful vices in much of the rest of the country, gambling and prostitution have been part and parcel of the Silver State since the mining boom days of the nineteenth century.

Zane Grey: An All-American Boy Fantasy

7/18/2007 12:00:00 AM

For the majority of society, we live in reality, our feet firmly planted on the earth. Yet, authors and other artistic occupants regularly explore the fictitious realm of life. Zane Grey, however, dwelled in the fantasy world of his books and unconventional relationships for a great deal of his existence, from almost every angle. Born in 1872 as Pearl Zane Gray (changed to Grey), his ancestors founded the town in which he was born--Zanesville, Ohio. Dropping the feminine-sounding Pearl from his name, he from then on went by Zane, a more authorial moniker.

Autumn in Zane Grey's Surprise Valley

7/27/2007 12:00:00 AM

The curves and bulges of the south-facing canyon wall stood out boldly in the mellow light streaming from a flawlessly blue afternoon sky. In the strip of deep shadow under the north-facing wall, lines of aspen and fir towered over the mat of scrub oak carpeting the canyon floor. The pink and yellow rock of the canyon walls cast a golden glow over the yellow of aspen and the red of oak. Standing at the terminus of the Aspen Trail at the box end of the canyon three hundred feet below its rim, I could gaze along the whole length of Surprise Valley to its intersection with Deception Pass.

Benjamin C. Truman and the Settling of California (Including the San Fernando Valley)

8/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

A hundred or a hundred fifty years ago, one would find in California, particularly in Southern California, a semi-tropical climate from the Santa Monica Mountain range going south, and dusty desert and ranchland from that point going north. It was this variety of climate that attracted hundreds of thousands of people to migrate to the state even after the Gold Rush had played itself out. And in no small part did the local writers and newspapermen of the day play in promoting California as THE place to be. One such individual was the journalist and author Benjamin C. Truman.

Discovering Winston Churchill in Fulton, Missouri

8/17/2007 12:00:00 AM

My quest had really begun five months earlier in Missouri with yet another map. While searching for a scenic alternative to the interstate en route to my original destination, I spied it in the tiniest of lettering: " Winston Churchill Memorial & Library"--nestled somewhere south of I-70 in an area buried in a spiderweb of rural highways. Plagued with curiosity and recalling the state's old motto, "Show Me," I set off the following morning on this irresistible detour, a casual ride through open land with beckoning signs for auto museums, picturesque lakes, and upcoming country festivals.

Mystery Interview: Marianne Wilski Strong

8/24/2007 12:00:00 AM

Literary Traveler celebrates the Mystery by talking with the award-winning mystery writer Marianne Wilski Strong. The author of twenty-four mystery short stories, many published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Wilski sets most of her stories in Northeastern Pennsylvania, calling upon both the region's anthracite coal history and her own Polish upbringing.

Buried Ghosts and Black Diamonds

8/24/2007 12:00:00 AM

In 1964, I left my hometown of Wilkes-Barre in northeastern Pennsylvania. But northeastern Pennsylvania never left me. It haunted me for years, until in 1990, I began to tell the story of that ravaged, nearly gothic area, the anthracite coal fields stretching from Pottsville in the south to Scranton in the north.

A Bewitching Ride Through Sleepy Hollow

8/24/2007 12:00:00 AM

Washington Irving, the first professional man of letters in the United States, is known for his contributions to the literary field through his essays and short stories. Writing for a number of periodicals as well as composing several novels, his work was considerably varied and ranged in genre from historical and biographical books, such as his biography of George Washington, to satirical essays that commented on the social, cultural, and political values of his time.

Nancy Drew: A Stratemeyer Family Enigma

8/24/2007 12:00:00 AM

When I initially received word that I was to compose a piece on Nancy Drew, potentially one of the most adored and widely known fictional characters of the past 75 years, I panicked. Although I had become vaguely acquainted with the young sleuth during my childhood by word of mouth, I had somehow missed out on the experience of actually reading the Nancy Drew Mystery Stories, the book series that started a mania for the sensational character and her friends, a series that has stood the test of time and endured for decades.

Oscar Wilde's West

8/19/2007 12:00:00 AM

Of the countless stories, novels, and plays inspired by and featuring Oscar Wilde, a significant number bear the title, "The Wilde West." One of these--a 1988 farce by Charles Marowitz--is set in Leadville, Colorado, during Wilde's lecture tour of North America in 1882. In it, Wilde appears for his lecture in a saloon, only to find it occupied by the trial of a handsome young bank robber--a member of Jesse James gang. Wilde, turned lawyer, successfully defends the guilty thief while Belle Starr and outlaw Jesse debate the relative merits of their autobiographies. In his preface, Marowitz explains that the play "arbitrarily yokes together" the myths of Oscar Wilde and the Old West. But as it turns out, the playwright's intuitive link between Wilde and the West was well founded.

The Truth About Harry Potter's Mysterious Conception

9/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

In 1990, Joanne Rowling, the author that goes by the widely known moniker J.K. Rowling, boarded a crowded train traveling from Manchester to London. She had just finished a weekend of flat-hunting and was sitting on the train when she was suddenly struck by the idea of writing a story about a young boy coming to terms with the fact that he's a wizard.

Ian Fleming's Distinguished London

9/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

Ian Fleming has the distinction of having created one of the most popular and enduring literary characters in the world--the suave and sophisticated British secret agent, James Bond. Despite his globetrotting adventures, Bond remains quintessentially English, and London, the city that Ian Fleming was so at home in, features in all the James Bond novels.

The London of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes

10/8/2007 12:00:00 AM

Perhaps no other literary figure is so firmly associated with their surroundings as the famous fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Think of Holmes and you conjure up a vision of 19th century London, at the time the largest metropolis in the world, with its gas-lit foggy streets, the rattle of the hansom cabs and the piercing shriek of a policeman's whistle. Parts of London have changed little in the hundred years or so since Holmes and Watson walked the streets and there are many reminders of Holmes as well as his creator's life.

Dashiell Hammett at the Hollywood Studios

9/17/2007 12:00:00 AM

For the record, this article will not be about Dashiell Hammett, per se. There will be no biographical information here other than to state that he was born in Maryland in 1894, died in New York City in 1961, and was one of the most successful mystery and detective writers in America. Instead, this article will concentrate on the stories that were put up on the big screen during his lifetime, and the major Hollywood studios that put them there.

Rudyard Kipling's Waltzing Ghost: The Literary Heritage of Brown's Hotel

9/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

Central London is fairly quiet when we put down at Albemarle Street. Yet an even deeper hush settles on the morning when a top-hatted doorman bustles out with an upraised umbrella and ushers us into another century. The reputation of Brown's Hotel precedes it, if the fact sheet we read back home in Chicago is any indication. "At which hotel do you stay in London?" one gentleman supposedly inquired of another. He allegedly replied: "I don't stay in a hotel, I stay at Brown's".

Wordsworth's Lake District

10/1/2007 12:00:00 AM

Eagerly, I stared out the window of a packed coach bus as we rode through the narrow, windy roads leading to the Lake District of northwestern England. The scenery was gorgeous--small mountains, dark blue lakes, pastures full of sheep, varieties of trees, and running streams covered the land. While watching the beauty before me, it became clear why William Wordsworth, poet and native of the Lake District, wrote so passionately about nature.

Tintagel Castle: Exploring King Arthur's Legend

10/16/2007 12:00:00 AM

Pronounced Tin-ta-jel and spoken with a British accent, even the name of this Cornish town sounds mythical and magical, as if casting a spell. In legend, Tintagel is where King Arthur was born. Today, fifteen centuries later, the town still earns its living from the King Arthur connection--King Arthur Cafes, Celtic bookshops and the King Arthur's Arms Hotel line the streets leading up to the soft hills and ruined castle ahead.

Moomin World (Muumimaailma): Family Fun in Finland

11/21/2007 12:00:00 AM

Once the sock-knitting capital of Finland, Naantali is now a magnet for Finns seeking whimsical creatures named Moomintroll, Moominmamma, and Moominpappa. The destination is Muumimaailma (or Moomin World in English). The theme park is just a few hours from Helsinki. Although unfamiliar to many Americans, the Moomintroll books by Tove Jansson (1914 - 2001) have been translated into over thirty languages.

The Beginning of Dickens: Hampshire, England

10/24/2007 12:00:00 AM

When I woke up, I whacked my head on the underside of a thatch roof. It was a deceptively hard surface. It was June, and I was in a little Hampshire cottage, having come to England for the first time to visit family. The mornings were bright, damp, and smelled of warm toast and clematis vines.

A Pilgrimage to San Damiano: Home of St. Francis of Assisi

11/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Two years ago I found myself in the town of Assisi in Umbria, the birthplace of one of the most famous mystics and saints of the Middle Ages: Francis of Assisi. I had come to this town to learn more about the man, his legend, and his legacy; to study his memory as preserved by the artist Giotto in the Basilica di San Francesco's narration cycle, and to visit San Damiano, the church at which Francis received his calling from God.

Karen Blixen's Kenyan Paradise

11/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

As I walk up the shrubbery-lined path to Karen Blixen's house in Kenya I spot the square clock, with its bold Roman numerals, over the verandah. Time played a big role in her life as she waited a lot. She waited for her philandering husband to return from safaris, she waited for her lover Denys Finch-Hatton to arrive in his single engine plane and she waited for the rains to quench her parched coffee plantation. Men and nature, they all failed her.

Heavyweights: When F. Scott Fitzgerald Met Gene Tunney

11/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

A.J. Liebling, the writer who first called boxing "the sweet science," once said, "A boxer, like a writer, must stand alone." For centuries it seems, writers have had a unique and enduring fascination with boxers and boxing. From Homer to Nelson Algren to Joyce Carol Oates, writers have revealed an obsession for the sport that, at first glance, seems odd. However, Liebling's statement may explain the connection: both writers and boxers face their opponents--another boxer, a blank page--alone. Both know the pitfalls and the rewards of solitary struggles.

Thomas Mann's Munich: A Lone Trip to Germany

11/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

Thomas Mann's famous first line in Gladius Dei was imprinted in my mind. For one year I had studied and dreamed of going to Munich. And there I was, about to board a train for the city where I hoped to find that broad range of experience which I felt had been missing from my life.

The Fortress of His Mind: Charles d'Orleans' Capitivity in The Tower of London

11/9/2007 12:00:00 AM

More than 5 centuries after he was here, I felt the presence of Charles d'Orleans of France, the one whose memories of the hourglass felt like my own. He was captured at Agincourt by Henry V, at the age of 21. Charles spent 25 years as prisoner, first in the Tower, then in various homes and castles throughout England. His entire life story is presented with intricate care and insight by Hella S. Haasse in her novel, In a Dark Wood Wandering.

Rome's Ultimate Guidebook: I, Claudius

11/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Here is a novel idea for your trip abroad: replace the guidebook with literary fiction. I, Claudius will prepare you for great buildings, art, and personalities--historical fiction brings Classical Rome to life. I, Claudius tells the tale of one of the Eternal City's earliest emperors, Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, who was the grand-nephew of the great Caesar Augustus. I, Claudius is his autobiography, written by the distinguished British translator, Robert Graves.

The Tumultuous Relationship Between Dante and the City of Florence

11/30/2007 12:00:00 AM

Dante Alighieri, perhaps one of the greatest poets of the medieval period, was born in 1265 into an affluent Italian family. Having nobility, ancient lineage, and a widely respected name, the only thing the Alighieri family lacked was money. To compensate for this financial deficit, Alighieri's parents, Alighiero de Bellincione and Bella degli Abati, arranged for twelve-year-old Dante, to eventually marry Gemma di Manetto Donati, a distant relative from Corso, Italy. Receiving a sizable dowry, Dante married Gemma as a young adult, had four children with her, studied at the University of Bologna, and authored several pieces of literature, such as Commedia, the poet's best-known work.

Literary Traveler Holiday Gifts

12/13/2007 12:00:00 AM

Welcome to the Literary Traveler Holiday Gift Guide. We want to help you find a gift for that special person who loves to read and loves to travel just as much.

Walker Percy's Hurricane Theory: An Existentialist Hope for Survivors of Katrina

1/6/2008 12:00:00 AM

By Northshore standards I'm considered a local, not a native, living here for more than 20 years, across Lake Pontchartrain thirty miles north of New Orleans, Louisiana. Most of us are transplants from the Big Easy seeking refuge under a canopy of piney woods and fresh water streams, pioneers carving homesteads and building new schools, the best in the state. But the people kept coming, so we rallied to save our greenspace and then Hurricane Katrina barrelled her way through our heartland. Tens of thousands of people rushed to higher ground on the Northshore to build a new future increasing the population of St. Tammany Parish by more than a third.

A Comical History of Brussels

1/27/2008 12:00:00 AM

From a country roughly the size of New Jersey comes an unprecedented amount of comic creativity--a level that has defined the genre from the industry's golden age to its present day renaissance. At the center of the Belgian comic culture is Brussels, the self-proclaimed comic strip capital of the world. From such international icons as Herge's Tintin and Peyo's Smurfs to the multitude of modern titles currently cluttering the comic store shelves, according to legendary comic writer and organizer of the annual Comics Fest Alain de Kuyssche, one thing remains the same: "Every one of them gets their start in Brussels."

An Outsider in Latvia, America & Art: Mark Rothko

1/31/2008 12:00:00 AM

East Marion Cemetery, Suffolk County, New York: the odor of pine trees, grass and inactivity loiters in the air. Tall pine trees responsible for the pitch smell stand in the distance like a living, green wall around the cemetery. In symbology, evergreen signifies immortality, which is ironic, since all illusions of immortality have come and gone for the permanent residents of East Marion Cemetery. The dead know only disappointment.

A Swiss-Italian Walk With Hermann Hesse

2/4/2008 12:00:00 AM

It was here in sun-drenched, sparkling Ticino, the southern, Italian speaking canton of Switzerland, that Hermann Hesse spent the last 43 years of his life and wrote many of his most famous works. As he gazed at towering, green mountains and walked through quiet woods, Hesse's creativity for writing and painting flourished, and now, 45 years after his death, literature connoisseurs, history buffs, and curious visitors alike can discover the jewel of Ticino that Hermann Hesse called home.

The Visible City of Venice

2/10/2008 12:00:00 AM

Nothing is firmly rooted in Venice. As such, it is a city that lends itself to a great deal of missteps and wrong turns. Any traveler who has been there will tell you that finding any particular destination can be a great struggle, and not simply because the locals are apt to wave their hands about in a cheerful, vague way whenever you ask them for directions.

Standing in Jewish Rome

2/14/2008 12:00:00 AM

Titus' Arch towers above us; its white marble Corinthian columns and travertine inlays gleam in the sun. It is one of those June days that makes you happy to be alive, happy to be wandering Rome. This trip, we have decided to focus only on Jewish sites. That means staying in the ghetto, wandering its tiny streets, climbing Esquiline Hill to gaze at Michelangelo's Moses, visiting the Great Synagogue and the Jewish Museum. And that means heading to Titus' Arch.

Rousing Nietzsche in Orta, Italy

2/20/2008 12:00:00 AM

Of all the Northern Italian lakes, Lake Orta and the town of Orta is a true prize. Divided by the Mattarone Mountain, Orta is cut off from the popular tourism of Lake Maggiore, and its shore town of Stresa--famously featured in Ernest Hemingway's war novel, A Farewell to Arms. Yet Lake Orta and the town are not short of literary connections. Its wooded alpine mountains, Monte Sacre, the holy mount (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) and Monte Rosa, have a history of inspiring those who arrive at this Piedmont idle, which is often overlooked. Yet the least unspoiled.

Jorge Luis Borges in Mythic Buenos Aires

2/24/2008 12:00:00 AM

Knife fights and backdoor Tango joints used to dot the cobblestone barrio where Jorge Luis Borges once lived. Now known as Palermo Viejo, this former Italian neighborhood in northern Buenos Aires was once overrun by hoodlums, gauchos and easy women who lived their lives like the lyrics of a Rubinstein Tango song.

Pearl S. Buck: A Foreigner in China

3/2/2008 12:00:00 AM

The Chinese port city of Zhenjiang is situated on the Yangtze River, just west of Shanghai. It is small by Chinese standards: population 2.9 million. A scattering of ancient Buddhist temples, well-kept parks and small mountains hedge the city's new commercial district--a block of brightly lit chain stores, two-story McDonald's and colossal shopping malls. Enormous red balloons shaped like traditional Chinese lanterns hover over shop entrances, advertising cheap goods and sales, while blind erhu players busk on street corners, crooning Beijing opera or Taiwanese pop songs.

Mr Biswas' Houses: Finding V.S. Naipaul in Trinidad

3/15/2008 12:00:00 AM

From an airplane window, Trinidad initially appears as a dense green forest rising over the turquoise Caribbean Sea. Beyond the Northern Range mountains, flat plains of cultivated fields line the horizon as far as the eye can see. Trinidad's recent history has much to do with these sugar cane fields, including the island nation's production of one of the more unique English-language writers of the last century.

Following the Ink: Prosa y Poesia en Castilla y Leon

3/23/2008 12:00:00 AM

Each region of Spain boasts some literary significance, but Castilla y Leo--home to El Cid, Miguel Cervantes, Teresa of Avila, and birthplace of the Castilian language--is perhaps the most compelling province for a lover of prosa y poesia. I spent a week there, seeking out the magic between pages of old manuscripts and among streets lined with cobblestones.

The Mysterious Affair of Agatha Christie

6/12/2008 12:00:00 AM

It's a story that even the Queen of Crime couldn't have come up with: the mysterious disappearance of the most famous writer in England and subsequent nationwide search, then fifty years later a sance in a glamorous Istanbul hotel and the discovery of a key that could solve the whole mystery.

Puccini's Paradise in Torre del Lago

6/13/2008 12:00:00 AM

"This is Paradise!" Giacomo Puccini exclaimed when first setting eyes on the Torre del Lago - the place which was to inspire some of his best-loved operas. Nestled between sandy beaches and pinewoods and perched on the edge of the Massaciuccoli Lake with the Apuan Alps forming a stunning backdrop; it is perhaps no surprise Puccini decided this was the place where he wanted to live.

Sprezzatura in Cinque Terre: The 5 Villages of Effortless Beauty

7/23/2008 12:00:00 AM

The Italians have an expression for art that the English language has still not found an equivalent for: sprezzatura. Sprezzatura is the ability of an artist to make his work seem effortless. It is the soft yet precise curves of The David or the color contrasts of a Monet; its enough to make me think even I am capable of creating such brilliance. Essentially, it is the physical manifestation of talent. Cinque Terre on the Italian coast seems to have an abundance of it.

The Odd Couple in Barcelona: Anton GuadiÂ & Robert Hughes

7/23/2008 12:00:00 AM

"What is that?" I wondered the first time I saw it. I should have asked the name. I later found it out - the Church of the Holy Family or La Segrada Familia. It was 1985, my first time in Barcelona and while I couldn't see the church for its construction cranes, I would come to know it and its architect, Anton GuadÃ?Â well - thanks to the Australian writer, Robert Hughes.

Hotel Chelsea: The World's Most Infamous Writer's Retreat

7/31/2008 12:00:00 AM

Whatever the modus operandi, the bare essentials remain the same: a writer needs a space, some tools, a conducive atmosphere, and some time to complete their task. Since 1905, a whole host of writers have found that elusive space and atmosphere at the Chelsea Hotel, deep in the heart of downtown New York City.

Marfa, Texas: Artist Enclave & Hollywood Oasis

8/2/2008 12:00:00 AM

Pencils ready- a pop quiz: John Steinbeck is to Salinas, California as Donald Judd is to __________. The correct answer, since the majority of us will need the help, is Marfa, Texas. More than likely, the question now is, who the heck is Donald Judd and where in the world is Marfa, Texas?

Going Green: The Artists Inn Residence in Washington, D.C.

8/14/2008 12:00:00 AM

Upon entering this circa 1900, spliced town home on Dupont Circle, the "public haunts" of pavement and traffic dissipate, replaced with flowing water, oils on canvas, murals, antiques, and a 1925 Steinway baby grand. It is a 21st century salon, christened in 2007 as the Artists Inn Residence Bed and Breakfast, a multi-disciplinary study in by-gone eras, a tribute to nature and artistic greatness. This, mon ami, is the perfect writer get-away.

J.M. Coetzee's Warring Cape Town

9/15/2008 12:00:00 AM

Perched on the tip of the African Continent, sandwiched between the crash of the Indian Ocean and the roll of the Atlantic, Cape Town exists in a tango of its past, present and future. Often described as capturing the free-spirit attitude of San Francisco circa the 1950s, at first glance Cape Town may seem bohemian and reckless. But at the turn of a corner its apartheid history and resulting current racial and economic struggles continue to be felt.

Curious George: From Nazi Germany to Bucolic New Hampshire

9/24/2008 12:00:00 AM

Few readers realize that had it not been for the indefatigable will of his creators, Curious George would have never existed.. The Reys, both German Jews, escaped Paris at the eleventh hour - hours before the Nazis occupied the city. And they did so by pedaling away on bicycles that Hans had cobbled together out of spare parts. The couple rode for three straight days, and eventually made their way to the Spanish border, where they sold the bikes to pay for train fare to Lisbon. From there they crossed the Atlantic and ultimately arrived in New York City with six children's book manuscripts still in their bags.

Champagne & Sheep: A Poetic Tour of Wales

10/2/2008 12:00:00 AM

Yet, it is a place where, it is said, the people have music in their blood - and poetry in their soul. Author Jan Morris, who has adopted Wales as her home, says being a poet is a characteristic Welsh condition. "The company of poets is the nobility of this nation," Morris has written.

A 'Moral Pub' Crawl Through James Joyce's Dublin

10/12/2008 12:00:00 AM

The sun casts shadows on the marble bar, its sheen worn dull by 120 years of greasy palms and frothy brew. Denudation through inebriation. A glass tips. Beer collects in pools on the bar - the snotgreen sea. Read that somewhere. Can't think about James Joyce without the old stream o' consciousness.

Ode to the Australian Outback through Dorothea McKellar

10/20/2008 12:00:00 AM

The air feels gritty and dry. My hair is brittle, my skin flaky. I know that everything here hurts, injures and kills. And yet, gazing across the silent lonely plains, I feel what a 19-year-old Dorothea McKellar (1885-1968) must have felt all those years ago when she penned one of Australia's most famous poems, My Country, when homesick in England.

A Protester in China: The Life of Lu Xun

11/9/2008 12:00:00 AM

Despite the nouveau rich careening madly around town in their upscale imported cars and SUVs, Shaoxing, China still retains much of its slow, gentle character. The women, especially, are known for their beauty and gentleness. The people are congenial. It is a good place to live and write.

From Turkmenistan to America: How I Found Langston Hughes

11/17/2008 12:00:00 AM

It was summer in Turkmenistan and the temperature was well over 100 degrees. A breeze blew desert dust into the room through the classroom's open windows. The two dozen or so men and women seated at the room's child-sized desks picked at plates of cookies and grapes as they listened to the boy recite a poem. "Vaht khappens to a dream deferred?" he began with a thick Russian accent. "Does it dry up like a raisin in zee sun?"

A Murakami-esque Day: Banalities & Absurdities in Beijing

11/30/2008 12:00:00 AM

It was on the day of empty restaurants that I realized my life had begun to blur with the literature of Haruki Murakami. The whole day felt like slipping through the city as a ghost. My husband and I boarded the subway at the odd hour of 10 a.m., when commuters had already hustled to work and the streets were populated mostly by shuffling elderly people with grocery bags. We went to Xidan, Beijing's financial center, in search of shoes, but after an hour of sensory overload amidst a bazillion bejeweled malls and billboards we were already in need of a beer.

James Dickey's Leesburg: The House of Deliverance

12/22/2008 12:00:00 AM

The small historic town of Leesburg Virginia certainly doesn't bring forth my atavistic desires and primordial rage, even less so does the stately Glenfiddich house, situated in the middle of the sprawling antebellum lawns and pillared front porches of North King Street. But from 1966-1968, the town, and the small room on the second story above the entranceway, served as the surroundings for James Dickey while he wrote his 1970 masterpiece about man's darker instincts, Deliverance.

Gabriela & Graciela: Two Lovers in Paraty, Brasil

1/2/2009 12:00:00 AM

If you've ever felt the peculiar desire to be slowly tortured by excruciating and seductive beauty, then take the four-hour Costa Verde bus ride from Rio de Janeiro, along the lush, curvilinear, mountainside road; observe the unending parade of proud, shimmering, aquamarine bays, the countless, corpulent jungle-topped islands, and the ceaselessly plunging tropical coastlines; then check and calculate, through the interminable hours, just how much more of this you will have to take until you finally reach Paraty, the pearl of Brazilian colonial port towns, where you will meet a lover.

A Mountain Climber's Dream: Vivienne de Watteville's Mount Kenya

1/16/2009 12:00:00 AM

On Christmas Day 1928, a young British woman arrived to live in a hut on the slopes of Mount Kenya. She had marched for two days to get there, through dense, animal-packed forest. After unpacking her books and her wind-up gramophone, she settled down to Christmas dinner: a tin of Heinz spaghetti in tomato sauce, and plum pudding. Later, the strains of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony drifted out into the forest night. Vivienne de Watteville would spend two months roaming the wild highlands of Mount Kenya.

San Buenaventura: Erle Stanley Gardner's Town of Grace

2/2/2009 12:00:00 AM

Old California. What a gracious time it was. A time when it was said, It's better to be on time than invited. Determined to seek solace and moderate temperatures, my wife and I travel to San Buenaventura for our annual pilgrimage from snow and biting cold to sun and caressing warmth.

Edith Wharton's Art History Lesson in San Vivaldo

2/10/2009 12:00:00 AM

In a rather remote village in the southern hills of Tuscany is an ancient monastery. There is a church and eighteen separate free-standing chapels. We - four American tourists - drove to San Vivaldo, which is one of the most unique religious sites in Italy. I say, we drove there, but we did not get in. We went unknowingly on a day not open to visitors. It was closed to us. Over a century earlier, in 1894, Edith Wharton arrived at San Vivaldo and not only got in, she revised the artistic history of the place.

Songs of Blue and Gold: Lawrence Durrell's Island of Corfu

2/17/2009 12:00:00 AM

These lines are from a fictional travel memoir in my novel Songs of Blue and Gold, but this was a real journey I had wanted to make for a long time, and for the same reason as my narrator: I was looking for Lawrence Durrell. It was October, the perfect time to arrive clasping a much-read copy of his Prospero's Cell, a glimpse of Corfu as it once was, overlaid with all the poetic imagination of the writer-traveller as a young man.

My Friendship with John Cheever

2/24/2009 12:00:00 AM

In a California bookstore recently, I saw a copy of The Short Stories of John Cheever, my all-time favorite collection of short fiction. On the table near it was a book that I wrote called James Dean Died Here. Light years apart in terms of impact and importance, still, seeing the two books near each other gave me a special feeling; a deep connection to a past chapter in my life.

Eudora Welty: A Woman of Southern Charm & Dark Solitude

3/13/2009 12:00:00 AM

It is the South that Eudora Welty longs for in her writing. I am not a Southern, not accustomed to the effusive hospitality and slower pace of things. So this past summer, I marched into Eudora's house, hoping to gain a new perspective into her Jackson, Mississippi life. As an outsider, I didn't know what to expect, but I did know that I admired, from her simple story "A Worn Path" to her Pulitzer Prize winning novel The Optimist's Daughter.

Back Home to Duluth, MN: The Short-Lived Residence of Sinclair Lewis

3/17/2009 12:00:00 AM

In 1970, a travel editor at the Los Angeles Times asked me to go to Sauk Centre, Minnesota, Sinclair Lewis's boyhood home and write an article about the town believed to be the model for Gopher Prairie in the novel Main Street. It was first published in 1920 and my piece would tie in with the 50th anniversary of the book's release.

Hundertwasser's Earthly Paradise in Downtown Vienna

3/24/2009 12:00:00 AM

Before me stands an apartment block like no other. Doused in a myriad of hues - purples, pinks, reds, yellows and periwinkle blues - it is like a sunset, caught within a concrete realm. This is Friedensreich Hundertwasser's Hundertwasser House, a low-income housing block in the centre of Vienna. With its undulating floors, rooftop garden and multicoloured walls it is both functional and beautiful; a practical piece of artwork for which the artist sought no payment. Hundertwasser wanted to prevent something 'ugly' from being erected in its place, so instead he designed a building that melded construction with nature, bringing the forest into the city.

A Time Capsule: Peter Handke's 1989 Yugoslavia

4/20/2009 12:00:00 AM

In Peter Handke's novel Repetitions Filip Kobal rides a train through a Karawanken Mountain tunnel to get from Villach, Austria to Jesenica in Yugoslavia. Out of the cultural terrorism of Europe into the fabled "Ninth Land" of Slovenia. We can't exactly duplicate Filip's trip with our Opel Kadett; but Zarko Radakovic and I decide to drive through a parallel tunnel.

Gallipoli: The Holy War between the Greeks and the Turks

4/30/2009 12:00:00 AM

I began reading Birds Without Wings merely as a follow up to Captain Corelli's Mandolin. Louis de Bernieres' prize winning novel, set on the Greek island of Cephallonia during World War II is still, to my mind, one of the best books of recent years. The way the opening chapters gradually come together and explode into a love story is brilliant, with the characters rather than the location being the focal point. I suppose I half expected Birds Without Wings to be along similar lines but, instead found it was Anatolia, the Gallipoli peninsula and the tragic last years of the Ottoman empire which took centre stage.

The Bulgakov Museum in Moscow

5/27/2009 12:00:00 AM

Yesterday I met with my best friend. It was her birthday but she didn't want to celebrate it. The only thing she wanted was to gather her close friends, to spend the whole evening together chattering and strolling down Moscow streets. So she did.

Unearthing Heinrich Schliemann in Modern-Day Troy

6/3/2009 12:00:00 AM

On my thirteenth birthday my parents bequeathed unto me a leather-bound and richly illustrated book, The Collection of Greek Sagas. Since that time in my childhood, I have been fascinated by the story of Helen and the Trojan War, dreaming of escaping to the historical site of Troy, located in Turkey by the sea. Imagine, a woman with a face so beautiful, that 'she launched a thousand ships,' when she was abducted by Paris and taken to Troy.

Divine Inspiration at The Oriental Hotel in Bangkok

6/17/2009 12:00:00 AM

The legendary Bangkok humidity sucks the moisture out of my skin and gnarls my hair into a halo of frizz. The heat is victorious. I am seeking refuge in The Oriental Hotel's romantic charm, aided by the past literary greats who have stayed here. The roster reads like a "who's who" of writers looking East for inspiration: W. Somerset Maugham, Robert Conrad, James Michener, Paul Theroux, Noel Coward, Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, Norman Mailer, Graham Greene, John le Carre, Barbara Cartland, Alexander Fleming, John Steinbeck, and Thai author Kukrit Pramoj.

The Oral Literary Tradition of Ghana: Folklore & Proverbs

7/7/2009 12:00:00 AM

Certain words will always linger. When I left Africa, I was speechless. Several tears spoke for me. I had only spent just shy of a month on the continent, but it was an extraordinarily defining experience that both affirmed and reformed me. Already missing the bounty of local food I had relished throughout my stay, the Twi words, "E dong bi ri bo" echoed in my mind as I boarded the plane, feeling an emptiness beyond their literal sense. Translated simply into English as, "there's a bell in my stomach," the proverbial meaning of my hunger - my want for the food, but more strikingly - metaphorically - for the people and the place, still resounds today.

China's Lin Yutang: Caught Between East and West

7/14/2009 12:00:00 AM

On a humid, sweat-soaked afternoon in 1966, China's most lauded writer arrived at his new home on the breezy slopes of Grass Mountain, outside the fast-growing city of Taipei, Taiwan. He had been living in the US and Europe for over thirty years and was deeply homesick. Mainland China was in the hands of Mao and the communists, so Taiwan would have to do.

The Plain Truth about Amish Country

7/23/2009 12:00:00 AM

On my way to the kitchen for breakfast, I opened the shades of the laundry room window to let in the sunshine, but instead of the usual view of the farmer's field across the street, I was met by a herd of cows grazing lazily in our front lawn. While waiting for our Amish neighbors to herd them back to their field, my family and I laughed and remembered that this was not the first time we'd had an invasion of livestock. Once, after returning from a week-long vacation, w'ed come home to a large series of runaway mule tracks through the backyard.

Faking It in Kuala Lumpur

7/27/2009 12:00:00 AM

Peter Carey made a good choice when he set large parts of his novel My Life as a Fake in Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. It's a city where not just some things, but most things, are not as they first appear. It seems dedicated to hard commerce, but pragmatic businessmen hire lion dancers to bring good fortune. It looks ultramodern but a traditional Malay village survives in the central business district. It appears divorced from nature, but rainstorms can paralyse it and pythons periodically pop up in new suburbs. And you think it has a single population, but it is really home to three distinct peoples and cultures.

The Time Traveler's Wife: Science Fiction With A Soul

8/4/2009 12:00:00 AM

Many people would probably consider H. G. Wells The Time Machine to be the first well-known use of time travel in literature, since the notion is stated blatantly in the title after all. Though the use of a machine is a definite part of the time travel genre, we forget that even Dickens' extremely recognizable A Christmas Carol uses elements of traveling forward and backward through the years.

LeClezio's Mauritius: On The Other Side, The Ocean's Side*

8/13/2009 12:00:00 AM

The racing clouds in the Mauritian sky, bulging with ominous promises of rain and wind, hurtled above us in whirls and whorls. I scrutinized the clouds' trajectories, trying to make sense of the auguries and predict an eventual break from the storm. Different layers of clouds sped through the sky in opposing directions. I gave up waiting for the sun, just as I gave up hanging my towels on the rack outside our bungalow; the wind, like my infant son with other objects, simply picked them up to dump them unceremoniously on the floor.

Sailing the Andes with Hal Roth, Travel Writer & Adventurer

8/21/2009 12:00:00 AM

Author, blue-water sailor, mountaineer, and photographer, Hal Roth once almost got himself killed, along with his wife and two other passengers when he ran his small sailboat aground during a storm in the Chilean archipelago. They were just north of Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of South America. This was in the 1970s, before GPS and satellite phones, and Roth didn't have a radio transmitter onboard to call for help.

Wandering Through Dante's Lands in the Casentino Valley

9/2/2009 12:00:00 AM

Some years ago, while I was in a library, my attention was drawn to the dusty and ancient cover of a book. Some golden letters composed the title: Through Dante's Lands. Impressions in Tuscany. I took the book from the shelf and opened it. A picture of Trinita's Bridge in Florence was there, the place where Dante first met his beloved Beatrice. This was a novel about a journey through Dante's lands in Tuscany, and the Trinita Bridge was the starting point for this journey.

Doganbey's Valley of Ashes: A Great Gatsby Inspiration in Turkey

9/7/2009 12:00:00 AM

A few years back, we had each bought a small place in Didim, a small fishing village about 200 miles south of Izmir. On the coast of the Aegean Sea, the town is located near the Didyma Oracle, a place of worship to Apollo, as important to the ancient world as the better known Delphi oracle was. However, Turkish everyday life still rules: throwing dice and playing dominoes in the cafes, eating freshly caught fish prepared to order in the locantasis, and, exploring the many historical sites within easy travel distance like Ephesus and Miletos.

An Indian Epiphany at Stratford-upon-Avon

9/24/2009 12:00:00 AM

My introduction to William Shakespeare aka The Bard of Avon was unforgettable. The setting: a classroom of boisterous teenagers waiting for a nervous professor to make his first gaffe. The poor man must have been unnerved by the rows of predatory half-smiles and his opening words proved to be a howler that surpassed our most sadistic dreams: "Killiopatra was bitten by an udder!"

Remembrance of Marcel Proust's Paris

9/29/2009 12:00:00 AM

Paris! The word conjures so many images: sophistication, elegance, romance - it presented endless possibilities to my mind as I prepared for my first visit to the city. It is only when we name something that it becomes real to us, it is a process which mysteriously invests the subject with a soul and personality. Marcel Proust wrote a lot about the names of places and the amount of significance we attach to them.

The Life and Times of Terry Southern: A Texan Gone Hollywood

10/6/2009 12:00:00 AM

She is the librarian at the Alvarado, Texas library and I've come to ask her about any information she may have on the writer Terry Southern. He is the American short story, novel and screenwriter who gave us the novels The Magic Christian, Candy, Flash and Filigree, as well as the screenplays for the films Easy Rider and Dr. Strangelove among many others. Even though we are standing smack in the middle of the man's birthplace, even though Texas has become, over the years, notorious for praising and loudly advertising any celebrity major or minor with billboards, museums or festivals, she has never heard of him. She seems to find my interest both intrusive on her time and unusual in its request. I'm bemused at the idea of the former because the library is only the size of a meat locker.

The Poe Toaster: Three Red Roses & a Bottle of Cognac

10/14/2009 12:00:00 AM

It's been two hours since we arrived at the wrought iron fence surrounding the old cemetery of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. We wait patiently, my friend and I, our car parked on the skeevy side of town. The only buildings that aren't boarded up are liquor stores and pawnshops, and the ladies of the night begin to make their appearance at about two in the afternoon. Oh yeah, and it's cold. Like dead of winter cold. There's a reason the only other outdoor event that has dared to pick this time for its annual ritual is the Superbowl, an event that can be viewed from heated living rooms.

In Search of Vladimir Nabokov in St. Petersburg, Russia

10/28/2009 12:00:00 AM

I arrived in Saint Petersburg in the middle of September. I must admit that in autumn it is rather rainy there. However, when I bought tickets, I was sure that the weather would be great. I trusted my intuition and it didn't fail me. I looked up at the Triumphal Arc, one of the main symbols of the city, as if asking a blessing from it and opened my map. I was searching for Morskaya street, 47 where famed Russian author Vladimir Nabokov spent the first 18 years of his life. I was a bit surprised that Morskaya quay was situated not in the city center, but on Vasilievsky Island. Fortunately (or unfortunately) I was ambitious enough and obstacles like that did not frighten me.

Vladimir Nabokov in the Grand Canyon & the Discovery of Butterfly Neonympha

11/2/2009 12:00:00 AM

We looked out from the Yavapai viewpoint on the Southern Rim of the Canyon. Dusty pink rocks rose out of the gouged ground for miles around, cradling long grey shadows. A low ceiling of white clouds stretched into the distance. Even with a nearby child launching spit balls over the ledge, it was still beautiful. We deliberated about what to do next. We'd driven 400 miles, hours from Phoenix, to have a look. So we figured we could check that box and head to the bar. Vladimir Nabokov would have been disappointed with our initial lack of curiosity.

Amy Grace Loyd, Literary Editor of Playboy, Talks Nabokov and The Original of Laura

11/3/2009 12:00:00 AM

Literary Traveler had a chance to catch up with Playboy magazine's literary editor, Amy Grace Loyd. The December issue, on stands November 10, 2009, is the release of Vladimir Nabokov's lost novella, The Original of Laura. Ms. Loyd discusses the details behind acquiring first serial rights and the longstanding literary tradition of Playboy magazine with LT's Network Editorial Director, Jennifer Ciotta.

Twilight Saga: A Modern Fairytale

11/9/2009 12:00:00 AM

I had the novel in my possession for two weeks before attempting to read it. One day, I decided to see what all the hype was about. I entered the world of Twilight, by Stephanie Meyer. This mesmerizing book captured me and took me into its arms. It did not let me go until I finished reading the last words. Twilight is a young adult book, so for me, a fully grown adult, it would be an easy read. But how could this youthful book be so engrossing, so captivating, so mesmerizing?

Bleak Kaliningrad: Infused with the Happiness of Philosopher Immanuel Kant

11/24/2009 12:00:00 AM

Tightening the protective thickness of my long coat, I began to question whether or not coming here was a good idea. A crisp wind stung my cheeks and challenged the tree branches around me, as the gray wool of the sky stretched itself over the oblast of Kaliningrad, Russia. This tiny exclave of the enormous Mother Country is nestled in between Lithuania, Poland and the Baltic Sea. Originally the great capital city of East Prussia (then called Konigsberg), it was overtaken by Soviet brigades in 1945 and renamed Kaliningrad after the Bolshevik revolutionary Mikhail Kalinin.

Alexander Pushkin, I Loved You Linen Factory

12/6/2009 12:00:00 AM

It was the sixth of June when the greatest Russian poet, Alexander Sergeevitch Pushkin, was born. It is on this very day that ordinary citizens rejoice in the birth of the founder of Russian poetry. In honor of him, I decided to celebrate the day at the township Linen Factory in the Kaluga region of Russia, where the poet and his wife settled down following their wedding.

Philip Roth: Goodbye Columbus, Hello Newark

12/14/2009 12:00:00 AM

I guess I felt a sort of kinship with Philip Roth. Well, vicariously anyway, through my dad. You see he, like Mr. Roth, is from New Jersey - he, from Jersey City and Roth from next-door Newark. Both grew up in Jewish households and both were the second children of first-generation American parents. So when I asked him if he had any familiarity with Newark, a major object of my focus in this article, I was expecting stories of the Roosevelt and Truman years, or what happened at the local theater. After all, he always talked about those things in regards to Jersey City, Union City, Manhattan, Bayonne, Hoboken, Atlantic City, and South Jersey, so why not Newark? Much to my astonishment though, he knew absolutely nothing about the city. Way to go, Dad.

Zelda Fitzgerald: The Roaring '20s Icon

1/7/2010 12:00:00 AM

Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was one of the most celebrated figures of the 1920s. Along with her husband, novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, Zelda epitomized the spirit of the times: carefree, fun-loving, and living for the moment. In the early 1920s, Scott and Zelda had the world at their feet. Fitzgerald was a rising star in the literary world with the publication of his first novel, This Side of Paradise, and was seen as the unofficial spokesman for an entire generation. Zelda, meanwhile, is credited as being the first true "flapper" and symbol of the age in her own right.

Frances Calderon de la Barca: Life in Mexico

1/20/2010 12:00:00 AM

For the first time in my life, I was on my way to Mexico. Two things had brought this trip about: a surprise invitation to the wedding of my Mexican friend's daughter, and... a book. By chance, I had come across Life in Mexico, by Frances Calderon de la Barca, published in 1842. It had such an impact on my imagination that I decided on the spot to use it as my travel guide, well over 100 years after it was written.

Chasing A Phantom in San Miguel de Allende: Beat Inspiration Neal Cassady

2/1/2010 12:00:00 AM

The city of San Miguel de Allende is a rock garden built into a chorus of hills and blooming with the vibrant colors of Mexico: ocher, rose, burnt orange, and bright green. Its narrow streets (sometimes comically so), which can be absurdly steep in the city's core, proudly display the stone work, carved wooden doors, arches, courtyards, balconies, and fountains dating from the time of the Spanish occupation in the 1600s. Rooftops, no more than three stories high, are graced with terraces and precariously placed potted cactuses. They frequently overflow with bright bougainvillea or other fragrant and colorful flowers.