Thread by @AmericanStudier

150 years ago today, the English-language edition of Jules Verne's Around the World in 80 Days was published. While Verne's book is a work of fiction, it both inspired a great deal of travel writing & helps us think about complex questions of how authors depict travel stories.

Starting today with three American travelers who were connected to and/or created their own versions of Verne's travel story:

William Perry Fogg, the Ohio businessman & adventurer whose travels & book helped inspire Verne;

Nellie Bly, the investigative journalist who beat Verne's record in her own Around the World in Seventy-Two Days;

& James Willis Sayre, the theatre critic who circled the globe in a mere 54 days in 1903! #twitterstorians

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2023/01/januar…

One of the first prominent American travel writers was Sarah Kemble Knight, a New Englander who kept a diary of her five-month journey from Boston to New York in 1704-5. Initially private, that diary was discovered by Theodore Dwight & first published in the 1820s.

So for the next post in my travel writing blog series, on what Knight's travel diary helps us see & analyze about America in the early 18th century! #twitterstorians

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2023/01/januar…

Many, many many, Americans have traveled to Cape Cod, most of them of course in the last century or so. But long before it was much of a tourist destination, Henry David Thoreau took four trips to the Cape between 1849 and 1857, compiling his observations into one manuscript.

So for the next post in my travel writing blog series, on two complementary reasons to read Thoreau's posthumously published, often overlooked Cape Cod (1865)!

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2023/02/februa…

The Boston Cosmopolitans, the group of elite New Englanders who (among other fancy-schmancy experiences) traveled widely between the US & Europe in the late 19C & early 20C, are easy to critique for their elitism & excesses. But while that's not wrong, there are other layers...

...as exemplified by one of my favorite Americans, Isabella Stewart Gardner, & what her European travels allowed her to create in her unique & inspiring @gardnermuseum. On that & much more in my next travel writing blog post!

americanstudier.blogspot.com/2023/02/februa…

PS. For much more than the much more in that post, see this great book by my undergrad senior thesis advisor, Mark Rennella!

link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9…