Mount Desert, Monhegan Island, Ogunquit, Mount Katahdin, Camden Harbor, the Allagash -- these names evoke varied images of Maine -- images created by such artists as Frederic E. Church, Winslow Homer, Rockwell Kent, John Marin, and Edward Hopper. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Maine served as both host and inspiration for a remarkable number of artists. It has been represented in almost every style and medium -- the luminist landscapes of Fitz Hugh Lane, impressionist seascapes of Willard Metcalf, abstractions by John Marin, and the realism of Andrew Wyeth's work.For 50 years, the Farnsworth Art Museum has collected expressions of Maine by these artists and others. Works by Washington Allston, Thomas Cole, Thomas Eakins, William Harnett, Martin Johnson Heade, George Inness, Robert Salmon, Gilbert Stuart, Thomas Sully, and others attest to the depth of the Museum's 19th century collection. The 20th century is richly represented by Will Barnet, George Bellows, Marsden Hartley, Robert Henri, Robert Indiana, Louise Nevelson, Neil Welliver, Marguerite and William Zorach, and especially the Wyeth family. The museum's holdings of American impressionists are especially strong, with works by Frank Benson, Joseph DeCamp, Childe Hassam, Maurice Prendergast, and John Twachtman.Maine in America presents a lavish selection of nearly 250 works from the Farnsworth's permanent collection of paintings, watercolors, and sculpture and traces the development of art in Maine within the larger context of American art.

“A thorough and engaging history of Maine’s rocky coast and its tough-minded people.”—Boston Herald“[A] well-researched and well-written cultural and ecological history of stubborn perseverance.”—USA TodayFor more than four hundred years the people of coastal Maine have clung to their rocky, wind-swept lands, resisting outsiders’ attempts to control them while harvesting the astonishing bounty of the Gulf of Maine. Today’s independent, self-sufficient lobstermen belong to the communities imbued with a European sense of ties between land and people, but threatened by the forces of homogenization spreading up the eastern seaboard.In the tradition of William Warner’s Beautiful Swimmers, veteran journalist Colin Woodard (author of American Character: A History of the Epic Struggle Between Individual Liberty and the Common Good) traces the history of the rugged fishing communities that dot the coast of Maine and the prized crustacean that has long provided their livelihood. Through forgotten wars and rebellions, and with a deep tradition of resistance to interference by people “from away,” Maine’s lobstermen have defended an earlier vision of America while defying the “tragedy of the commons”—the notion that people always overexploit their shared property. Instead, these icons of American individualism represent a rare example of true communal values and collaboration through grit, courage, and hard-won wisdom.

The illustrated map and guide to all the lighthouses in Maine, coastal New Hampshire and nearby New Brunswick. Completely revised and updated, with new cartography and text, and several new illustrations. 75 standing and 10 "lost" lighthouses located on a detailed coastal map. 35 original watercolor illustrations--8 newly commissioned. Reverse has history, description & directions to each lighthouse; directories of lighthouse museums & cruises; intriguing true tales. Folded paper, 24x36 in. For laminated poster edition, enter 1888216298 in search box. Similar maps available for Massachusetts, Mid-Atlantic (NJ, SE PA, DE, MD & VA), Southeast (NC, SC & GA), Florida and Northwest (OR, WA & AK); plus a U.S. Lighthouses map & directory. Search "Bella Terra Maps" on amazon.com to find them all.

This book traces the artistic and cultural roots of the special appeal that the island of Monhegan in Maine has held over a broad range of artists who have resided there, some of them year-round for long periods, others who summered there or lived there only briefly. Includes examples in color of the works of 80 artists, including Wyeth (Jamie), Bogdanov, Bellows, Frederick, Henri, Hopper, and Kent.

From the first explorers, to the century of ships, to our modern fisheries and diversification, Maine's maritime story is told in engaging detail.  Lincoln Paine has laid down the framework for an understanding of Maine's maritime history by relating the population and landscape of today to their historic foundations.This engaging overview of Maine’s maritime history ranges from early Native American travel and fishing to pre-Plymouth European settlements, wars, international trade, shipbuilding, boom-and-bust fisheries, immigrant quarrymen, quick-lime production, yachting, and modern port facilities, all unfolding against one of the most dramatic seascapes on the planet. Down East can be read in an evening but will be referred to again and again. When the first edition was published in 2000, Walter Cronkite―a veteran Maine coastal sailor as well as The Most Trusted Man in America―wrote that “Paine’s economy of phrase and clarity of purpose make this book a delight.”Paine went on to write his monumental opus The Sea and Civilization: A Maritime History of the World (PW starred review), but now returns to his first and most abiding love, the coast of Maine, to revise and update this gem of a book. The new edition is printed in a large, full-color format with a stunning complement of historical photos, paintings, charts, and illustrations, making this a truly visual journey along a storied coast. 100 photos and illustrations, color throughout

A fascinating and comprehensive chronicle of four hundred years of maritime history along the Maine coast. Roger Duncan recounts four hundred years of Maine's rich maritime history, from the early seafarers' discovery of its valuable resources and the families that settled the land, to Maine's role in the history of the US in peacetime and in war. He traces the changes in Maine's economy over the past century: the demise of the coastal trade; the burgeoning popularity of pleasure boating after World War II; the hardships that beset the fishing and lumber industries; and the rise of tourism. This anecdotal panorama of people, land, boats, and water will absorb historians, nautical enthusiasts, and New Englanders alike. 105 black-and-white photographs and illustrations, 18 maps

In print for fifty-five years, One Man's Meat continues to delight readers with E.B. White's witty, succinct observations on daily life at a Maine saltwater farm. Too personal for an almanac, too sophisticated for a domestic history, and too funny and self-doubting for a literary journal, One Man's Meat can best be described as a primer of a countryman's lessons a timeless recounting of experience that will never go out of style.

After 17 years at sea, Linda Greenlaw decided it was time to take a break from being a swordboat captain, the career that would earn her a prominent role in Sebastian Junger's The Perfect Storm and a portrayal in the subsequent film. Greenlaw decided to move back home, to a tiny island seven miles off the Maine coast. There, she would pursue a simpler life as a lobsterman, find a husband, and settle down. But all doesn't go as planned. The lobsters refuse to crawl out from under their rocks and into the traps she and her father have painstakingly set. Fellow islanders draw her into bizarre intrigues, and the eligible bachelors prove even more elusive than the lobsters. But just when she thinks things can't get worse, something happens that forces her to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about life, luck, and lobsters. Filled with nautical detail and the dramas of small-town life, The Lobster Chronicles is a celebration of family and community. Greenlaw proves once again that fishermen are the best storytellers around.

"A revelation. No one will ever view Andrew Wyeth's apparently tranquil works the same way again after reading this vivid and astonishing portrait of the turbulent, driven man who paints them. Richard Meryman has written a wonderful book." - Geoffrey C. Ward At its most fundamental level, this stunning and unique biography describes a distinguished painter's enterprise of transmitting emotion onto a flat surface. It explores all the factors that have combined to create Andrew Wyeth -- his childhood in a hothouse of creativity; his hypersensitivity; his formidable wife; his identification with people marginalized and misunderstood -- all which have made him an American icon. In the process, his realist works in watercolor and tempera, including the famous "Christina's World," have gained him a special and secure niche in the history of American art. The book is a portrait of obsession -- how single-mindedness has affected Wyeth's relationships and transformed his world into a realm of secrecy and fervid imagination. Those who read this book will never look at Wyeth's work as they did before. It reveals the artist's dark depths, as well as the ruthless, angry, child/man fantasist who paints the basic brutalities of existence -- death and madness --that vibrate eerily beneath his pictures' calm surfaces. Richard Meryman's narrative is almost novelistic, with its larger-than-life characters and subplots: the tragedy of C.C. Wyeth; Betsy Wyeth's campaign for independence and individuality; the byzantine 15-year-long drama of the Helga paintings; the eccentric and creative Wyeth clan; and the idiosyncratic land and people of Maine and Pennsylvania. Based on 30 years of research, frequent visits and countless conversations with the artist, his family, friends, admirers and critics, Andrew Wyeth: A Secret Life is the only book about the man and the artist that gets behind his carefully guarded screen, tells the full story of his life and reveals his complex personality and the motivations for his paintings.

His name summons up our earliest images of the beloved books we read as children. His illustrations for Scribner's Illustrated Classics (Treasure Island, Kidnapped, The Last of the Mohicans, The Yearling) are etched into the collective memory of generations of readers. He was hailed as the greatest American illustrator of his day. For forty-three years, starting in 1902, N.C. Wyeth painted landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and murals, as well as illustrations for a long shelf of world literature. Yet despite worldwide acclaim, he judged himself a failure, believing that illustration was of no importance.David Michaelis tells the story of Wyeth's family through four generations -- a saga that begins and ends with tragedy -- and brings to life the huge-spirited, deeply complicated man, and an America that was quickly vanishing.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize“Russo writes with a warm, vibrant humanity.... A stirring mix of poignancy, drama and comedy.” —The Washington PostWelcome to Empire Falls, a blue-collar town full of abandoned mills whose citizens surround themselves with the comforts and feuds provided by lifelong friends and neighbors and who find humor and hope in the most unlikely places, in this Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Richard Russo. Miles Roby has been slinging burgers at the Empire Grill for 20 years, a job that cost him his college education and much of his self-respect. What keeps him there? It could be his bright, sensitive daughter Tick, who needs all his help surviving the local high school. Or maybe it’s Janine, Miles’ soon-to-be ex-wife, who’s taken up with a noxiously vain health-club proprietor. Or perhaps it’s the imperious Francine Whiting, who owns everything in town–and seems to believe that “everything” includes Miles himself. In Empire Falls Richard Russo delves deep into the blue-collar heart of America in a work that overflows with hilarity, heartache, and grace.

Here, in one large volume, is a book that captures the full sweep of Maine's culture and history, from the first dazzled vision of the European explorers to the modern prose of Carolyn Chute and John McPhee. Thoughtfully edited, illustrated with photographs of documents, buildings, and personalities, this compendium brings to life a state that has always maintained its own character and independence. All the great figures who were ever born in, have inhabited, or have written about Maine can be found in these pages, including (among many others) Longfellow, Thoreau, Jewett, Millay, Beston, and Gould. In addition, the editors have uncovered small unknown gems: the journal of a foot soldier marching with Benedict Arnold and the bawdy memoirs of a sea captain's wife. Illustrated with over fifty splendid halftones, this collection - the most complete and entertaining selection of Down East writing yet assembled - will be indispensable reading for anyone who has ever succumbed to the charms of the Pine Tree State.

"What a wilderness walk for a man to take alone!...Here was traveling of the old heroic kind over the unaltered face of nature." -Henry David ThoreauOver a period of three years, Thoreau made three trips to the largely unexplored woods of Maine. He climbed mountains, paddled a canoe by moonlight, and dined on cedar beer, hemlock tea and moose lips. Taking notes constantly, Thoreau was just as likely to turn his observant eye to the habits and languages of the Abnaki Indians or the arduous life of the logger as he was to the workings of nature. He acutely observed the rivers, lakes, mountains, wolves, moose, and stars in the dark sky. He also told of nights sitting by the campfire, and of meeting men who communicated with each other by writing on the trunks of trees. In The Maine Woods, Thoreau captured a wilder side of America and revealed his own adventurous spirit.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

"Maine truly has a language of its own, as the state’s favorite storyteller makes plain, with hilarious illustrations by a leading regional cartoonist."

What better way to celebrate 50 years of book publishing than to celebrate everyday life in Maine. Gathering the work of 50 photographers from all over the state, the book captures the day to day lives of ordinary Mainers. Primarily a book about people, these images are arranged to follow the course of a day, starting with morning routines, passing through the events of the day, and closing at nightIt's a stunning tribute to the extraordinary that can be found in the ordinary. Together these images compose a moving portrait of a small place at a small moment in time.

With a coastline that rivals California’s, Maine attracts millions of visitors each year who come to swim, fish, hike, or just enjoy the views. Many of the images present a near panoramic scope, placing the viewer in the middle of a wilderness splendor. The photographs capture the region’s famous sandy beaches, tree-covered mountains, tidepools brimming with life, and secluded harbors, as well as quaint villages, historic lighthouses, cranberry bogs, and lobster boats. Chapters cover Ogunquit, Kennebunkport, and Portland to Penobscot Bay, Mount Desert Island, and Cobscook Bay. A central focus is Acadia National Park, one of the top ten most visited national parks in America. Nearby, the town of Bar Harbor hosts more than eighty cruise ships each year. The book also celebrates offshore Maine, with images of whales, puffins, and other elusive sea creatures. The Coast of Maine makes an affordable and charming gift for anyone planning, or dreaming of, a visit to this glorious region.