"The American Scene"

[stoutfellow]

I'm currently recording the details of a volume of travel writings by Henry James, and the current section struck me as somewhat... odd. It is a collection of essays that James published, in the early 1900s, as The American Scene. Here are the chapter headings:

I. New England: An Autumn Impression
II. New York Revisited
III. New York and the Hudson: A Spring Impression
IV. New York: Social Notes
V. The Bowery and Thereabouts
VI. The Sense of Newport
VII. Boston
VIII. Concord and Salem
IX. Philadelphia
X. Baltimore
XI. Washington
XII. Richmond
XIII. Charleston
XIV. Florida

I ask you: does anything about that set of headings strike you as odd? Remember: The American Scene, published in the early 1900s....

Comments

[ex_gryphon136]

That James apparently thinks America is comprised solely of the 13 original colonies?

I can understand his not listing, oh, Washington state, which was still considered "frontier" back then. Or even Arkansas or Wisconsin. But where are Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, etc?

[stoutfellow]

Well, in fairness, he did visit Florida....

[ex_gryphon136]

OK, only the Eastern Seaboard, then. :)