Wallace Stegner

The United States purchased 828,000 square miles of territory from France in 1803. Thomas Jefferson commissioned an expedition to establish a river route to the Pacific Ocean. Lewis and Clark kept voluminous notebooks, which disclose hitherto unknown North American areas.

mile is a half-treatise, half-novel about a fictitious character called mile. Rousseau recounts mile’s growth and education, a schooling aimed to instill in him the characteristics of his imagined “natural man,” uncorrupted by contemporary society.

Simon, a shoemaker without a home or land, lived in a peasant’s hut with his wife and children, earning his livelihood through his labor. Work was cheap, but bread was expensive, and he spent his earnings on food.

The swashbuckling exploits of a dapper scoundrel—a French version of Thomas Crown Arsene Lupin is a clever confidence man and thief who was created by Maurice LeBlanc in the early 20th century. He is sometimes referred to as the “Sherlock Holmes” of the criminal world.

Charles Dickens’ American Notes for General Circulation details his 1842 tour to North America. He functioned as a critical observer of North American society, reporting on their advancement. Four years later, in Pictures from Italy, he wrote like a traveler.