American Scenery: Or, Land, Lake, and River Illustrations of Transatlantic Nature

Nathaniel Parker Willis (1806-67) came from a publishing family and began his writing career with contributions to magazines. He also wrote poetry and plays but is best remembered as a travel writer. In this two-volume work of 1840, his contribution (described on the title page as ‘the literary department’) was to provide a narrative for prints from the engravings of William Henry Bartlett (1809-54), the famous British landscape artist, who followed already established tourist routes in the United States to make his drawings. Each of Bartlett’s 119 engravings is accompanied by a short essay by Willis, who states in the preface that it is his intention to bring to the reader at home ‘at small cost’ the sensations of travel which ‘those whose lot is domestic and retired’ would never be in a position to experience for themselves. This extremely popular work remained in print for thirty years.