Shore Chronicles: Diaries and Travelers' Tales from the Jersey Shore 1764-1955 - Softcover

Various Contributors

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0945582773 ISBN 13: 9780945582779

Publisher: Down The Shore Publishing, 2003

Synopsis

Shore Chronicles, this remarkable collection of fifty travelers' accounts from 1764 to 1955, begins with adventurous journeys by stagecoach - when the coast was still a wild frontier - and concludes with the opening of the Garden State Parkway. In the two centuries between, the pleasures and sights of the Shore are described by such well-known writers as John J. Audubon, Walt Whitman, Robert Louis Stevenson, Stephen Crane and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But we also read fascinating stories from the private letters, journals, and diaries of others visiting the Shore - ordinary people with extraordinary impressions of this much-loved coast. Shore Chronicles reveals an exceptional 127-mile-long coastline that has seen much change, yet holds an appeal as powerful as ever.

About this title

From the Publisher

Shore Chronicles joins two other acclaimed Jersey Shore anthologies published by Down The Shore Publishing - Shore Stories: An Anthology of the Jersey Shore, a collection of contemporary writing, and Under A Gull's Wing: Poems and Photographs of the Jersey Shore - in a trilogy of extraordinary writing about this region.

From the Inside Flap

For millions of people, summer means traveling to the Jersey Shore. Every generation brings a different outlook and a new sense of discovery to this beloved region. Shore Chronicles, a collection of 50 accounts of shore visits between 1764 and 1955, begins with adventure travel by stagecoach, when the shore was still a wild frontier. It concludes with the opening of the Garden State Parkway, which brought about rapid change and growth. In the two centuries between, we read of an auction of goods from an 1828 shipwreck on Long Beach Island; we experience traveling by steamship from Philadelphia to Cape May in 1848; we find teenagers on Tuckers Island in 1809 innocently gathering now-threatened Piping Plover eggs for egg nog; we watch a dawn-to-dusk, continuous line of migrating birds over Barnegat Bay in the fall of 1864; we visit the elegant, opulent resort of Long Branch in the late 1800s; and we discover the "fantastic" architecture of Atlantic City in 1914.

Shore Chronicles is an enlightening historical perspective on pleasures and pastimes that are timeless. For, in spite of great changes to the landscape, we connect with our predecessors - who write here of breathtaking sea and sky vistas, of "sea bathing," of a bluefish blitz, of storms and erosion, amusements, boardwalks, and lifeguards. The book reveals a much loved coast that has seen remarkable change, yet still holds an appeal as powerful as ever.

About this edition

• Publisher: Down The Shore Publishing
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0945582773
• ISBN 13: 9780945582779
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368
• Editor: Margaret Thomas Buchholz
• Illustrator: Various Contributors