Literature by Place - Exodus Books

Store Location

It's kind of crazy to what extent geography can inform an author's work. Jack London spent most of his life at sea, dog-sledding across Alaska, boxing and generally being an adventurous guy who would put today's REI crowd to shame. Would he have penned some of the greatest American novels otherwise? especially ones concerned primarily with man battling the elements for survival in both a mental and physical sense? Very probably not, which explains why Oscar Wilde didn't write about wolves and crazy ship captains.

No, Oscar Wilde wrote primarily about fops and society people parrying witticisms incessantly. That's not to say his work has no place in a serious consideration of literature—au contraire, The Picture of Dorian Grey is one of the finest novels written in English. It's just more evidence that if you're an author who lives in the Canadian mountains or the clubs of London, your writing will reflect that.

Physical terrain isn't the only consideration. Sartre wrote about people lolling about with no real sense of purpose except to drink wine and smoke cigarettes and look languorous because he lived in France in the 1940s. Friedrich Nietzsche had immense mustaches and espoused a form of nihilism because he was German. The Russians wrote impossibly long novels because they lived in Russia. And Chinua Achebe was almost entirely influenced by his African upbringing.

That's not to say no one can write well about a context they haven't experienced firsthand. I'm pretty sure Robert Heinlein never visited Mars, and even if he did it wasn't as his books describe; the same goes for Bradbury. And no, Roald Dahl was never lost in a delightfully (though at times, terrifyingly) absurd chocolate factory. Yet even with these examples, the authors conveyed essentially the attitudes of the countries they came from—Heinlein and Bradbury from the U.S., Dahl from the U.K.

Our Literature by Place subcategories are admittedly Anglo-centric. North American literature features, well, American literature, and you can be pretty sure British literature reflects the same system; everything else goes in world literature. We have plenty of non-American or -British literature, we just don't have much from any one place besides those two. At any rate, we hope these categories are helpful, and if they guide you toward one book you're looking for (or maybe one you didn't even know existed), they've done their job.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

Did you find this review helpful?

33 Items found Print

Active Filters:

19th Century Literature,

Autobiographies & Memoirs

	Apologia Pro Vita Sua Dover Giant Thrift Editions by John Henry Newman from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00
	Autobiography of Charles G. Finney The Life Story of America's Greatest Evangelist - In his own words by Charles G. Finney from Bethany House Autobiography for 9th-Adult in Biographies (Location: BIO) $19.00
	Classic Slave Narratives by Henry Louis Gates, ed. Reissue from Signet Classics for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.95 $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Diary of a Napoleanic Foot Soldier by Jakob Walter from Penguin Putnam for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $6.50 (1 in stock)
	Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $5.00 $3.00 (1 in stock)
	Innocents Abroad Reader's Digest World's Best Reading by Mark Twain from Reader's Digest for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Jack Nastyface Memoirs of an English Seaman by William Robinson from Naval Institute Press for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00 (1 in stock)
	Journals of Lewis & Clark Signet Classics by John Bakeless, editor from Signet Classics Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $8.95
	Kit Carson's Autobiography by Kit Carson from University of Nebraska Autobiography for 9th-12th grade in Biographies (Location: BIO)
	Lewis and Clark Expedition - 3-volume Set by Meriwether Lewis from J.B. Lippincott Co. Primary Source Documents for 9th-Adult in Vintage History & Biographies (Location: VIN-HIS) $32.00 (1 in stock)
	Life on the Mississippi Signet Classics by Mark Twain from Signet Classics Autobiography for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $4.95
	Life on the Mississippi Reader's Digest World's Best Reading by Mark Twain from Reader's Digest for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Napoleon's Russian Campaign by Count Philippe-Paul de Segur from Time-Life Books for 11th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $2.00 (1 in stock)
	Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass, edited and introduction by David W. Blight from Bedford Press for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $3.00 (1 in stock)
	Omoo by Herman Melville from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $10.95
	Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Frederic Remington 1993 printing from Little, Brown & Company for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman, Jr., illustrated by Maynard Dixon from Heritage Press for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $12.00 (1 in stock)
	Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman from International Collectors Library for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Oregon Trail Famous Books for Young Americans by Francis Parkman from A. L. Burt Company for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.50 (1 in stock)
	Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant Penguin Classics by Ulysses S. Grant from Penguin Classics Autobiography for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Sufferings in Africa The Incredible True Story of a Shipwreck, Enslavement, and Survival on the Sahara by Capt. James Riley from Skyhorse Publishing for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Travels in Arabia Deserta by Charles M. Doughty from Heritage Press for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $9.95
	Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana from Walter J. Black, Inc. for 9th-Adult in Walter J. Black Classics Club (Location: VIN-LITWJB)
	Two Years Before the Mast Signet Classics by Richard Henry Dana Jr. from Signet Classics Autobiographical Narrative for 10th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana Jr., illustrated by E. Boyd Smith from SeaWolf Press Autobiographical Narrative for 10th-Adult in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $12.95
	Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by H.A. Mueller from Heritage Press for 9th-Adult in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
	Two Years Before the Mast Rainbow Classics by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by Alexander Dobkin from World Publishing Company for 9th-Adult in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC)
	Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, with period illustrations and a biographical sketch by H.W.L. Dana from Dodd, Mead & Co. for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19)
	Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana, illustrated by Robert Frankenberg from Doubleday & Company for 9th-Adult in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Typee A Peep at Polynesian Life from Modern Library for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $12.95
	Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin, abridged by Millicent E. Selsam and illustrated by Anthony Ravielli from Harper & Row for 10th-Adult in Vintage Nonfiction (Location: VIN-NFIC)
	When I Was a Slave Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection Dover Thrift Editions by Norman Yetman (editor) from Dover Publications for 9th-Adult in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $6.00 $3.00 (1 in stock)

Shop

Support

Hours & Directions

Connect