What does travel teach us about literature? How can literature help us understand a place? A Road Course in Early American Literature explores these questions through personal narrative and traditional scholarship. Journeying with familiar and lesser-known works, I explain my passion for the American survey to 1860, a college course I have taught for two decades. These pages are part travelogue, part resource guide, and I hope, challenging fun. (For the scholarship see the book’s Footnote Trails .) Join me,
by Thomas Hallock | Oct 6, 2021
On October 6, 1723 a young runaway named Benjamin Franklin walked down a Delaware River wharf, stepped onto dry land, and for the first time his life, trod the streets of Philadelphia. His circuit that morning would become the iconic passage in a story of his life–the book we now call the Autobiography . Franklin buys “three great puffy rolls” and makes short loop through today’s Center City, one loaf of puffy bread tucked under each arm. Years later he described that fateful day, and while the image has ha