A popular and prolific travel writer--as well as a poet, dramatist, short-story writer, novelist, and editor--Nathaniel Parker Willis was a keen observer of natural and social scenes. A darling of society, Willis relished elegant appearances, dressing his long frame to foppish perfection. In many ways his writing mirrors his social pose: it is often charming, witty, and graceful but is occasionally somewhat artificial. He toured the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia and recorded his impressions not only in travel works such as Pencillings by the Way (1835) but throughout all the literary genres in which he worked. His fame in his day may be gauged by the fact that virtually everyone of any importance had something to say about him, whether laudatory or derogatory. Today, however, he is largely--and undeservedly--forgotten.

Willis was born in Portland, Maine, the second of nine children of Nathaniel and Hannah Parker Willis. On...