During the mid nineteenth century Daniel Pierce Thompson of Vermont enjoyed a period of considerable popularity as an author of historical romances. Generally regarded as an imitator of James Fenimore Cooper, Thompson never achieved critical success even during his heyday, and few reviews of his work exist. The only exception to this critical silence came with the publication of Locke Amsden (1847), a novel of education about a young Vermont teacher that preceded Edward Eggleston's The Hoosier Schoolmaster (1871) by more than two decades. Thompson's overblown style and contrived plots have not worn well and are unlikely to attract a wide audience in the future. Students of antebellum American attitudes toward education and literacy, however, will continue to find much of interest in Locke Amsden, and Thompson's is also a valuable example of the fervor for discovering an American past that swept the United States during the first half of...