Going Abroad: European Travel in Nineteenth-Century American Culture (Princeton Legacy Library, 5198) - Softcover

Stowe, William W.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0691600201 ISBN 13: 9780691600208

Publisher: Princeton University Press, 2017

Synopsis

In a nation struggling to establish its own identity, all kinds of Americans, for all kinds of reasons, were enchanted with Europe. A European trip, whether extravagant or modest, could serve social advancement, aesthetic enrichment, or personal curiosity. Travel allowed men and women, the descendants of European settlers or African slaves, to shed their familiar surroundings and comfortable personas, adopt new roles, and measure themselves against the European experience. These travelers were often also writers. Throughout the nineteenth century, celebrated authors and beginners alike published newspaper columns, magazine articles, guidebooks, travel essays, letters, and novels based on their European journeys. In Going Abroad, Stowe examines not only classic works by such writers as Irving, Fuller, Twain, James, and Adams, but also lesser-known works by African-American authors, journalists, feminist writers, and diarists. Travel and the writing of it were important, Stowe argues, in molding a peculiarly democratic, yet essentially class-based, sense of personal and group identity. Combining literary and cultural analysis, he suggests new ways of understanding nineteenth-century Americans' concept of their nation and its place in the world.

Originally published in 1994.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

About this title

Review:

". . . an almost sociological reading of some American travel literature. . . . Works by writers like Mark Twain, Henry James, Margaret Fuller, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Washington Irving and others (including the African-American writers William Wells Brown and David F. Dorr) are reviewed to show how travel literature helped forge not only the identity of the nascent American nation but also the travelers' own identity." (New York Times Book Review)

"The ways in which the Old World was used and represented by American writers in the development of their nation's own cultural identity is a large, important and fascinating theme which Professor Stowe comprehends and examines in great deal." (Times Literary Supplement)

"Beginning with the work of Washington Irving, travel literature was a popular art form in 19th-century America. . . . This volume effectively shows the evolution of the genre's conventions, the socioeconomic roots of its popularity, and the multiplicity of its social, cultural, and aesthetic functions." (Choice)

"Through diaries, newspaper articles, guidebooks, and magazine essays, Stowe examines the personal and social reasons that well-known travelers such as Emerson, Twain, and Henry Adams, as well as African Americans like David F. Dorr and women like Margaret Fuller, sailed east. . . . These writers used their traveling experience to hone writing skills and create a literary style, much the same as travel writers do today." (Library Journal)

From Library Journal:

Europe was the destination of choice for 19th-century American travelers. Through diaries, newspaper articles, guidebooks, and magazine essays, Stowe (English, Wesleyan Univ.) examines the personal and social reasons that well-known travelers such as Emerson, Twain, and Henry Adams, as well as African Americans like David F. Dorr and women like Margaret Fuller, sailed east. Early in the century, Americans celebrated their identity as former Europeans, paying homage to common history and tradition. In the later years, traveling Americans were aware of their separate identity, with a culture that had evolved from the European model. These writers used their traveling experience to hone writing skills and create a literary style, much the same as travel writers do today. Though intriguing, this dense, scholarly book will be more at home in academic than public libraries.
Mary Ann Parker, Dept. of Water Resources Law Lib., Sacramento, Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0691600201
• ISBN 13: 9780691600208
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272