This title features the earliest known images of many Connecticut towns. This charming volume is a collection of ink washes produced by engraver and popular American historian John Warner Barber (1798-1885), each depicting a specific locale in a Connecticut town. In creating these drawings, Barber sought realism, but also to portray the beauty in rural nature and the peacefulness and harmony of small-town life. The drawings, most never published before, are accompanied by contemporary descriptions of the view and buildings, and the changes that have occurred there since the mid-nineteenth century.

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER P. BICKFORD has served as director of the Connecticut Historical Society, and is the author of several books on Connecticut history, including Voices of the New Republic: Connecticut Towns 1800-1832 (2004). He lives in Providence, Rhode Island. J. BARD McNULTY is professor emeritus of English at Trinity College, and author of several books on the cultural history of Connecticut, including Connecticut Observed (1999), written with Richard Buel Jr. McNulty lives in Glastonbury, Connecticut.