Allegheny Episodes - by Henry W Shoemaker (Paperback)

About the Book

The Penn State University Press is pleased to introduce Metalmark Books, a joint imprint of the Press and the University Libraries at Penn State. Books published under this imprint are selected from the collections of the University Libraries. They may be viewed online or ordered as print-on-demand paperbacks. Initially, books published under the Metalmark imprint will be chosen from the Libraries extensive Pennsylvania holdings. Over time, the scope will broaden to include other significant out-of-print titles. These five Metalmark reprints preserve and make available once again some of the early writing of folklorist Henry W. Shomaker. He authored hundreds of pamphlets and books on nature, history, and folklore. He was publisher of several influential newspapers in Pennsylvania, including the Altoona Tribune and the Reading Eagle. He became the first state folklorist in America, one of the first chairs of the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, and an influential member of the State Forest Commission and the State Geographic Board.

Book Synopsis

Allegheny Episodes is the eleventh of twelve volumes in Henry Shoemaker's Pennsylvania Folklore Series. Published in 1922--years before Shoemaker's time as Pennsylvania's first state folklorist--Allegheny Episodes includes twenty-five stories written in his typical literary style. Some tales recall famous hunters and loggers who made their way through Pennsylvania's rough country; others center on rivalry and lost love, ghosts and other supernatural phenomena, and the wilderness itself.

Shoemaker saw Pennsylvania's folklore as a melding of Native American and European practices. Though his methods have been contested over the years, Shoemaker's work as a folklorist stemmed from his deep affinity for Pennsylvania's fading wilderness and his desire to capture the heart of its people through the spoken and written word.

About the Author

Henry W. Shoemaker (1880-1958) was the author of more than twenty volumes of popular Pennsylvania literary folklore and numerous narratives about Pennsylvania's disappearing wildlife during the first half of the twentieth century. He also served as Pennsylvania's first state folklorist from 1948 to 1956.