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May 23 2008

Backgrounder: Literary Philadelphia

Philadelphia's Literary History Lives On Beyond The Pages Of A Book

Since the earliest days of the nation’s founding, American writers as diverse as Edgar Allan Poe to the members of the Algonquin Roundtable have found inspiration and made their homes in the Philadelphia region. Although many of them are now deceased, their legacies live on at the sites where they lived and worked. Many of these authors benefited from their proximity to Philadelphia’s picturesque Washington Square, where the country’s publishing industry took root and continues to dominate particular fields. For detailed information and a literary tour of Washington Square’s existing and historic literary sites, visit www.ushistory.org/tour/tour_washsq.htm. Here’s a guide to some of the region’s other literary locales:

  • Beginning in October 2008, the Edgar Allan Poe House will anchor Philadelphia’s celebration of the bicentennial of the great horror author’s birth. The house, where Poe lived for one year and is believed to have begun work on The Raven, will debut an entirely new array of exhibitions—most notably a giant model of the author’s head—and will stage performances, readings and lectures. In addition, the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia boasts traveling and permanent collections of Poe memorabilia, including manuscripts, letters, first editions, a lock of Poe’s hair and Charles Dickens’ stuffed raven. Poe House, 7th & Spring Garden Streets, (215) 597-8780, www.nps.gov/edal; Free Library, 1901 Vine Street, (215) 686-5322, www.freelibrary.org
  • In pastoral Bucks County, the Pearl S. Buck House at Green Hills Farm keeps alive the legacy of the first female to receive both the Nobel and Pulitzer Prizes for literature. Home to Buck and her family for 38 years, the author of The Good Earth penned most of her 120 books, more than 400 short stories, 10 children’s books and numerous non-fiction articles from this homestead. Now, visitors can appreciate her life and works through her still-furnished house and permanent and rotating exhibitions that display her prizes, manuscripts, letters from Harry Truman and Eleanor Roosevelt, memoirs and personal effects. Sometime in the near future, the manuscript for The Good Earth will be put on display. 520 Dublin Road, Perkasie, (215) 249-0100, www.pearlsbuck.org
  • Bucks County has been home to many more famous authors throughout the centuries, as evidenced at the James A. Michener Art Museum, named for the Doylestown native son and Pulitzer Prize winner who penned such books as Tales of the South Pacific. The art museum boasts James A. Michener: A Living Legacy, which uses original items to recreate the Bucks County office where Michener worked for more than 35 years. Objects on his desk include two autographed baseballs from the Baltimore Orioles, his dog license issued to him in 1965, his Gypsy Witch fortune telling playing cards and his Doylestown High School t-shirt. The museum’s second location is host to a multi-media, interactive exhibition that brings to life the work of many other Bucks County writers such as Dorothy Parker, S.J. Perelman of the Algonquin Roundtable and Harlem Renaissance author Jean Toomer. 138 S. Pine Street, Doylestown, (215) 340-9800; Union Square, New Hope, (215) 862-7633, www.michenerartmuseum.org
  • Many of the world’s greatest literary treasures can be found at the Rosenbach Museum & Library, an 1860s rowhouse that holds the personal collection of the Rosenbach brothers, who dealt in fine and decorative art, rare books and manuscripts. Perhaps the best known feature of the collection is James Joyce’s manuscript for Ulysses, but equally impressive are 10,000 original drawings, notes and rare editions belonging to Maurice Sendak; important first editions of Don Quixote and other works by Cervantes; William Blake’s original drawings and books; more than 500 Lewis Carroll books, letters and rare photos; portions of Charles Dickens’ manuscripts; notes and outlines for Bram Stoker’s Dracula; Dylan Thomas’ manuscript and typescript for Under Milk Wood; and almost all of modernist poet Marianne Moore’s manuscripts, correspondence and personal effects. 2008-2010 Delancey Place, (215) 732-1600, www.rosenbach.org
  • Constructed in 1848, the only home ever owned by Walt Whitman can be visited on the revitalized Camden, New Jersey waterfront. The Walt Whitman House is where Whitman grew to international fame as the author of Leaves of Grass, hosted visitors from around the world like Oscar Wilde and Bram Stoker and completed his last comprehensive volume of poetry before his death in 1892. Today, as a New Jersey State Historic Site and a National Historic Landmark, the restored Whitman House contains Whitman’s original letters, personal belongings, the bed in which he died and the death notice that was nailed to the front door, as well as a collection of rare 19th-century photographs, including the earliest known image of Whitman. 330 Mickle Boulevard, Camden, NJ, (856) 964-5383, www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/historic
  • The Charles L. Blockson Afro-American Collection at Temple University serves as one of the nation’s leading research facilities for the study of the history and culture of people of African descent. The compilation of more than 500,000 items includes rare books, prints, photographs, slave narratives, manuscripts, letters, sheet music, foreign language publications and ephemera and boasts first editions by Phyllis Wheatley, W.E.B. Du Bois, George Washington Williams and other notable authors. Visitors to this impressive collection can page through narratives by Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Prince Lee Boo, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass and Nancy Prince in the slave narratives section. Sullivan Hall, Room 011, 1330 West Berks Street, (215) 204-6632, astro.ocis.temple.edu/~masante/blockson.html

The Greater Philadelphia Tourism Marketing Corporation (GPTMC) makes Philadelphia and The Countryside® a premier destination through marketing and image building that increases business and promotes the region’s vitality. For more information about travel to Philadelphia, visit www.gophila.com or call the Independence Visitor Center, located in Independence National Historical Park, at (800) 537-7676.

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Tagged: Arts & Culture, History