Sloane Ranger

I took a break from writing this morning and went out hunting. My fields were the second-hand bookstores of Newburyport and my prey was to be old magazines with useful engravings and woodcuts for my 18th and 19th century clipart files. In this, I was disappointed, but all was not lost.

Much to my delight, one of the stores had a handful of Eric Sloane books in hardcover and with plastic protective wraps over the dust jackets. They weren't cheap, but Sloane is such a blessing to people who work in subjects concerning early American life, that I didn't hesitate more than half a heartbeat before snapping all of them up. They will be the backups for the paperback versions that I have been using for so long. Some of which are tied together with twine to keep the loose pages from escaping.

Here's what I found today:
Sloane, Eric. Diary of an Early American Boy. New York: Funk & Wagnall's. 1962
Sloane, Eric. An Age of Barns. New York: Dodd, Mead, and Company. 1985
Sloane, Eric. The Seasons of America Past, New York: Funk & Wagnall's. 1958
Sloane, Eric. Eric Sloane's America. New York: Promontory Press. 1982

The best of the bunch for me is his "Diary of an Early American Boy" which is a core inspiration for my project about Henry, but "Eric Sloane's America" is also great since it is three books in one: "American Barns and Covered Bridges" from 1954, "Our Vanishing Landscape" from 1955, and "American Yesterday" from 1956. This is from the book "The Seasons of America Past".

I would love to be able to illustrate the way he does, but I cannot. I will have to hope for an artist who is interested in the material, or track down some ancient woodcuts or lithographs.

... and another reference! Alice Morse Earle mentions Henry in "Stagecoach and Tavern Days".