Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature : …

What if you could sit beside a turn-of-the-century scholar with eclectic tastes and let him guide you through the curious byways of literature and history? Bombaugh's collection is exactly that kind of companionable wandering. Gathered from the "harvest-fields of literature," this miscellany offers both grave and sportive fare - weighty historical inquiries side by side with mischievous anecdotes and literary oddities. The range is astonishing: Norse adventures in America, the Icelandic sagas, the true story of how the New World got its name, the landing of the Pilgrims, the first legislative assembly, the signing of the Declaration. Yet Bombaugh never lectures. He delights. He tells you what it cost to discover America, what Washington really did at the Constitutional Convention, which legends the old sagas preserved. The result is a portrait of American history not as chronicle but as cabinet of curiosities, each entry a small jewel picked from the field. For readers who love literary wandering, who prefer their history spiked with odd facts and their learning delivered with wit, this book remains a singular pleasure. It asks only an idle hour and a curious mind.