Contents

Foreword -- The spirit of place -- Benjamin Franklin -- Hector St. John de Crèvecœur -- Fenimore Cooper's white novels -- Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking novels -- Edgar Allan Poe -- Nathaniel Hawthorne and "The scarlet letter" -- Hawthorne's "Blithedale romance" -- Dana's "Two years before the mast" -- Herman Melville's "Typee" and "Omoo" -- Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" -- Whitman.