At Halfway Point: State Literary Maps

Abstract

1Several literary maps covering the entire U.S.A. are on sale commercially. A six-color map, 44 x 64 inches, The Development of the United States, names one thousand authors, with 350 literary titles, and incorporates one thousand illustrations; buy from NCTE (Stock No. 54407) at $6.50 for NCTE members. School House Books, 421 Belvidere St., La Jolla, Calif., sells a Map of Literature in white, red, blue, 30 x 48 inches, listing 175 authors, and featuring dozens of quotations from Samuel Sewall's diary, William Byrd, Franklin, Poe, Lowell, Emerson, Whitman, Henry James, Thoreau, Bryant, Teasdale, Kilmer, etc.; about thirty cartoon vignettes are inserted. At bottom of map all writers relisted, in order of date of birth, to 1908. Many minor listings or bits of information supplied; thirty-six authors featured on map's border-scroll. Attractive for junior high and high school viewers. Perfection Form Co., Logan, Iowa, sells for $3.95 a map, American Literature, 1967, 42 x 56 inches, white, light blue, dark blue, and black, giving briefly annotated listings of over 270 authors, usually with one or more book titles. About thirty illustrations in and around map; several inset sections, for New England, Massachusetts, Boston area, New York City. Four periods of literary history color-keyed with insets. Some quotes featured from DeVoto, O. Henry, William Faulkner's Nobel Prize acceptance speech, etc. For younger or more casual readers, there is Literary America, 1966, sold for $2 by Civic Education Service, 1733 K St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20006; 28 x 36 inches; map area purple, with oceans and bordering areas green. About sixty entries, in and around map, each a multicolor sketch attached to a bold-print caption with book title, date, author, and a phrase of annotation (i.e., Walden, Henry David Thoreau, 1854. Values of nature and solitude). Hemingway and many moderns not included.