Andrew Wittkop's LITERARY VOYAGERS
Featured Book
Literary Voyagers
A complicated friendship blooms during a fated meeting in northern Michigan between two nineteenth-century women writers.
In the mid-1830s, the author Anna Brownell Jameson was called from Britain to Canada to see her husband. Before she returned back home, she embarked on a trip around the Great Lakes to gather material for a book on the “plight of the Indian woman.”
In a remarkable interaction on Mackinac Island, where the current-day lower peninsula of Michigan meets the upper peninsula, she met Jane Johnston Schoolcraft―an Ojibwe American poet and translator married to the geologist Henry Schoolcraft, who was working as an Indian agent for the United States government. The two women talked extensively, bonding over their interests and plights, and sharing private demons.
After their meeting, Anna continued to gain recognition for her writing and become a larger part of the literary scene in Britain and the Continent, entangling herself in the affairs of the likes of Elizabeth Barrett-Browning, Ottilie von Goethe, Lady Byron, and Ada Lovelace. Jane became sicker and less able to work.
In Andrew Wittkop’s sensitive, subtle retelling, complete with Anna's sketches and other historical images, the nuances of the relationship between the two women reveal much about the complicated nature of connection and disconnection and Anna’s blindnesses and missed opportunities. This inventive debut opens a window on two under-remembered writers.
This book will be available for purchase at the event.
About This Event
Content welcomes Northfield author Andrew Wittkop for a reading from and celebration of his debut book, LITERARY VOYAGERS. Please join us in the bookstore on Thursday, November 5th at 7:00 pm. 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 educated by her Irish father. As Anna visits with the Schoolcrafts, she observes events that will reverberate through history, and shape the rest of her life. Andrew Wittkop is a Minnesota writer, educator, and natural scientist. This event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required; however, it’s very helpful to us if you RSVP using the button below, as this allows us to set up our event space accordingly. Thank you!
Featured Author
Wittkop, Andrew
Andrew Wittkop is a Minnesota writer, educator, and natural scientist.
About the Venue
Content Bookstore
Content is the independent bookstore in historic downtown Northfield, Minnesota.
Visit store page