Seekers of scenery

About this book

"During the nineteenth century, American travelers began to "discover" southern Appalachia and to define it within mainstream American culture. As a result, American periodicals published a great deal about the region, which encompasses parts of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, and Kentucky." "Eighteen articles, culled from this body of literature - including work by Rebecca Harding Davis, W.E.B. DuBois, Charles Dudley Warner, and Constance Fenimore Woolson - make up this volume. Some passages now read as environmental elegy: descriptions of old-growth forests long since cut, waterfalls now dammed, vistas now hidden behind pollution on high ridges. A variety of genres presents a historic view of the region, as well as providing insight into the construction of travel writing in the nineteenth century." "The volume contains helpful glosses and explanatory notes, while maps aid twenty-first-century travelers in following nineteenth-century travel routes. In addition, the book is illustrated with many woodblock engravings."--Jacket.