Famous Persons and Places
- Downloads
- Under 100
- First published
- 1854
- Pages
- 300
About this book
Famous Persons and Places is a collection of magazine pieces by Nathaniel Parker Willis, gathered and published in book form in 1854. The collection draws on Willis's long career as one of the most successful American magazine writers of the mid-nineteenth century and includes his observations of various major figures and locations from his many years of travel in Europe and America.
Willis had a particular gift for the kind of social and observational writing that the new mass-circulation magazines of the 1830s and 1840s wanted. He had spent substantial time in Europe in the early 1830s, serving as foreign correspondent for the New York Mirror and producing the series of travel letters that established his reputation. His access to European literary and aristocratic society was unusually good for a young American writer, and his published descriptions of figures including Lady Blessington, Disraeli, Walter Savage Landor, and various others gave American readers a closer view of European cultural life than they had previously had.
Famous Persons and Places gathers many of these earlier pieces into a single volume. The famous persons section includes profiles of writers, politicians, aristocrats, and various other public figures Willis had met or observed. The famous places section provides his descriptions of European cities, country houses, classical sites in Italy and Greece, and various American locations of historical or scenic interest.
Willis's prose was light, observant, and pitched at the educated middle-class American audience that the new magazine market was developing. He was sometimes accused of being too gossipy and of trading too much on the social access he had gained, but his actual writing is more careful than the harsher critics admitted. The portraits of public figures are based on direct observation and quote actual conversation where Willis could recall it accurately.
The collection is a useful introduction to Willis for readers who do not want to work through his magazine output piece by piece. It pairs with his Pencillings by the Way and with the American Scenery volumes for a fuller picture of his career. For readers interested in mid-nineteenth-century American magazine writing, the book is essential.
Contents
About the author
More from this genre
See all- Rachel Jackson
- Whittier at Close Range
- D Daughters of the CrossDaughters of the Cross
- A An Account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-HaAn Account of Sa-Go-Ye-Wat-Ha
- A Garden of Girls
- A Day with Ludwig Beethoven
Books like this one
Reviews and discussion
No ratings yet. Be the first reader to rate this book.
Rate this book
Pick a star, then sign in. Only readers who confirmed their email can rate.
No comments yet. Share a thought, a question or a favourite passage.
Copyright concern? Read our DMCA policy
Read or download
Public domain book This work is in the public domain and free of copyright. Anyone may read, download and share it.
- EPUB 457 KB
-
KINDLE Send to Kindle Send
- Download the EPUB file to this device.
- Open Amazon's Send to Kindle page, sign in, and add the file. Open Send to Kindle (opens in a new tab)
On a phone: open the downloaded EPUB and share it to the Kindle app.
You can also email the file to your Kindle address (it ends in @kindle.com) from an email address you approved in your Amazon account.
- PDF 1.4 MB
- MOBI 754 KB
Downloads start right away. How to open EPUB on your phone
Book facts
- Author
- Nathaniel Parker Willis
- First published
- 1854
- Reading time
- About 10 hours
- Pages
- 300
- Language
- English
- Genre
- Biography
- Formats
- PDF, EPUB, MOBI, Read online