Literary New York

The streets and houses of New York become a record of its writers in Charles Hemstreet's illustrated literary history. Beginning in Dutch New Amsterdam, he introduces Jacob Steendam, a warehouse clerk and poet whose house used burnt black bricks to decorative effect. The account connects this early resident with the changing names and shapes of Manhattan's streets, then follows the city's literary associations through chapters on Thomas Paine, Washington Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and Edgar Allan Poe.

Much of the interest lies in the small places where literary life took shape. Windust's gathers actors and writers in conversation, while McDonald Clarke finds subjects for verse in nighttime walks and views from his room. Nearby, Ray Palmer writes a hymn while teaching school, and Lorenzo Da Ponte works to establish Italian opera in the city. These accounts suit readers interested in how homes, meeting places and everyday surroundings connect urban history with the lives of authors.