RALPH WALDO EMERSON SEEMS TO BE THE ONLY U.S. CITIZEN WHO HASN’T FALLEN UNDER THE CITY’S SPELL.
How to know the unknowable man
Fewer than half of O. Henry’s short stories actually take place in New York, but we still see the city through his eyes
The author walks us through literary Boston at its zenith. But Boston being what it is, we also come across the Revolution, ward politics, and the great fire.
Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner for 150 Years
From Fort Ticonderoga to the Plaza Hotel, from Appomattox Courthouse to Bugsy Siegel’s weird rose garden in Las Vegas, the present-day scene is enriched by knowledge of the American past
It took half a century for his critics to see his subjects as clearly as he did; but today he stands as America’s preeminent portraitist
The years the famous writer spent in their town were magic to a young boy and his sister.
One of America s truly great men—scientist, philosopher, and literary genius—forged his character in the throes of adversity
The city has been a lure for millions, but most of the great American minds have been appalled by its excesses. Here an eminent observer, who knows firsthand the city’s threat, surveys the subject.
Our most popular practitioner of the art speaks of the challenges and rewards of writing
To Owen Wister, the unlikely inventor of the cowboy legend, the trail rider was a survivor from the Middle Ages – “the last cavalier,” savior of the Anglo-Saxon race
The Literary Lights Were Always Bright at
To Henry James, as to his fellow expatriates Whistler and Sargent, the culture of the Old World was “vast, vague and dazzling,” yet they could never quite forget or abandon the New