The American Landscape: A Critical Anthology of Prose and Poetry

by John Conron (Compiler)

Deformations: twentieth-century landscapes of ruin.
Walden / E.B. White
From the Grand Canyon to Burbank (1945) / Henry Miller
A Sand County Almanac / Aldo Leopold
Illinois bus Ride / Aldo Leopold
Thinking Like a Mountain / Aldo Leopold
Silent Spring (1962) / Rachel Carson
Realms of the Soil / Rachel Carson
Of a Fire on the Moon (1969) / Norman Mailer
A Brook in the City (1930) / Robert Frost
The Mouth of the Hudson (1964) / Robert Lowell
Decline and Fall (1960) / John Frederick Nims
Burning Mountain (1960) / W.S. Merwin
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country (1967) / William Gass
The Cleveland Wrecking Yard (1967) / Richard Brautigan
The Magic Poker (1969) / Robert Coover --

Early explorations.
Descriptio Insularum Aquilonis (1076) / Adam of Bremen
Letter ... Describing ... His First Voyage ... (1493) / Christopher Columbus
Letter to the King (1524) / Giovanni da Verrazzano
Decades of the New World (1533) / Peter Martyr
Expedition to Cibola (1540) / Pedro de Castaneda
First Voyage to Virginia (1584) / Arthur Barlowe
Ode to the Virginian Voyage (?1605) / Michael Drayton
Briefe and True Relation (1602) / John Brereton --

The cultivation of the promised land, 1620-1800.
Of Plymouth Plantation (1620) / William Bradford
Wonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in New England (1653) / Edward Johnson
The History and Present State of Virginia (1705) / Robert Beverely
Letters from an American Farmer (1782) / Hector St. Jean De Crevecoeur --

Eighteenth-century perspectives: natural history and the sublime.
Travels (1791) [A Trip up the Altamaha River] / William Bartram
Travels (1791) [Ephemera: St. John's River] / William Bartram
Travels (1791) [Salt Springs] / William Bartram
Travels (1791) [A Sylvan Scene] / William Bartram
Notes on Virginia (1784) [The Confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers] / Thomas Jefferson
Notes on Virginia (1784) [The Natural Bridge, Virginia] / Thomas Jefferson --

Poetry of scene: an American grand tour.
View from West Point (1840) / Nathaniel Willis
The Canal Boat (1846) / Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Book of Niagara Falls / Horatio Parsons
Black Mountain-Lake George (1840) / Nathaniel Willis
from Travels in New England and New York (1821-1822) / Timothy Dwight
Notch of the White Mountains (1835) / Nathaniel Hawthorne
The American Scene (1907) / Henry James --

Landscape in the great theater of human events.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) / Washington Irving
from The Last of the Mohicans (1826) / James Fenimore Cooper --

Landscape as idea: the transcendentalists.
From Walden (1854) / Henry David Thoreau
from Cape Cod (1864) / Henry David Thoreau
from The Maine Woods (1864) / Henry David Thoreau
from The Mountains of California (1894) / John Muir
A Wind-storm in the Forests / John Muir --

Landscape as idea: romantic prose and poetry.
Sights from a Steeple (1831) / Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Ambitious Guest (1835) / Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Island of the Fay (1841) / Edgar Allan Poe
from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845) / Frederick Douglass
A Forest Hymn (1825) / William Cullen Bryant
Each and All (1839) / Ralph Waldo Emerson
Haze (1843) / Henry David Thoreau
Low-Anchored Cloud (1843) / Henry David Thoreau
#824: The Wind begun to knead the Grass (?1864) / Emily Dickinson
#550: I cross til I am weary (?1862) / Emily Dickenson
#797: By my window I have for Scenery (?1863) / Emily Dickinson
#1278: The Mountains stood in Haze- (?1873) / Emily Dickinson
#1343: A single Clover Plank (?1875) / Emily Dickinson
When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd (1865) / Walt Whitman
Song of the Redwood-Tree (1874) / Walt Whitman
A Voice from Death (1889) / Walt Whitman --

The ways west: explorers, travelers and emigrants.
From The Journals of Lewis and Clark (1809) / Meriwether Lewis
from Travels in the Interior of North America (1839) / Prince Maximilian
from Astoria (1836) / Washington Irving
from Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains (1845) / John C. Fremont
from Across the Great Southwestern Prairies (1845) / George W. Kendall
from The Discovery of Yellowstone Park (1905) / Nathaniel Pitt Langford
from The Exploration of the Colorado River and Its Canyons (1895) / John Wesley Powell
from The Grand Canyon (1895) / John Wesley Powell
from Roughing It (1872) / Mark Twain
from Specimen Days (1822) / Walt Whitman
from The West from a Car Window (1892) / Richard Harding Davis
from the Central Gold Region (1860) / William Gilpin
Dakota Wheat Fields (1880) / C.C. Coffin
from Old Jules (1935) / Mari Sandoz
from The Octopus (1901) / Frank Norris
from The Grapes of Wrath (1939) / John Steinbeck --

Landscape as environment: local color landscapes.
The Luck of Roaring Camp (1868) / Bret Harte
Beyond The Bayou (1894) / Kate Chopin --

Landscapes as antagonist: the literary naturalists.
The Blue Hotel (1898) / Stephen Crane
from The ...

625 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1974

Reviews

[Jbyanbroz142 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The many ways in which The American landscape was changing constantly and how different individuals and different groups of people viewed it- some spiritually, some as an enemy to be conquered, some as a friend to be respected and violated as little as possible. Some saw it primarily as an idea in the abstract & others saw it as an endless provider of resources,especially food but also metals,gold,timber, etc. How people viewed the wilderness,the forests,the plains,the rivers, etc. determined how they acted.

[Jeff Kirschenbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great anthology by one of my favorite professors. The course based on this book is still memorable thirty years later.