Works

About the book

“… an evocative study of friendship and the ongoing attempt to see the world anew.” -Christine Lai, author of Landscapes.

“…the book we have all been waiting for about the brilliant, complex and enigmatic 19^th-century author and art historian Anna Jameson.” -Joanna Pocock, author of Greyhound.

“…a visual delight…” -Terry Pitts, writer of the literary blog Vertigo since 2007.

“Everything that Wittkop calls forth about their era raises questions for our own time: why do those at a disadvantage recapitulate their oppression onto others, and what does it mean for us, in turn, to extend understanding?” -Alicia Puglionesi, author of In Whose Ruins.

Literary Voyagers is a creative nonfiction re-telling of English writer, art critic, and early feminist Anna Jameson’s 1837 tour of Lake Huron. On Mackinac Island, Anna meets the American couple Henry and Jane Schoolcraft. Henry Schoolcraft is best known for “discovering” the source of the Mississippi; Jane was a chronically ill writer and translator born to an Ojibwe mother and an Irish father. As Anna visits with the Schoolcrafts, she observes events that will reverberate through history, and shape the rest of her life.

A bricolage of 19th century texts and images—including a remarkable collection of contemporaneous sketches by Jameson—Literary Voyagers reads like a nonfiction novella, drawing the reader into the textures, colors—and even smells—of a pre-Civil War America and early Victorian England that remain ominously relevant today. Bold in form but engaging to read, the work serves as a compelling, at times startling narrative, and a brief but capable introduction to these criminally underappreciated writers and their fascinating milieu.