An American Childhood

by Dillard, Annie

• ISBN13: 9780060915186
• ISBN10: 0060915188
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780061843136
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2010-03-10
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publications

About This Book

An American Childhood by Annie Dillard is a poignant and vivid memoir that captures the essence of growing up in Pittsburgh during the 1950s and 1960s. This book is a must-read for anyone who has ever cherished memories of childhood summers, rock collections, or the magic of discovering a book that was written just for them.

Who Uses It?

Primarily, this book is used by students and educators in literature and memoir courses at the college and university levels. It's also a valuable resource for anyone interested in understanding the complexities of childhood experiences and the power of storytelling. Parents and readers who appreciate memoirs will find this book particularly resonant as it explores themes of family, identity, and the importance of following one's passions.

History and Editions

First published in 1987, "An American Childhood" has been a beloved classic for decades. The book has been re-released several times, with the most recent edition available since 2013. This edition maintains the original's poignancy and vivid storytelling, making it a timeless read.

Author and Other Works

Annie Dillard is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author known for her lyrical and insightful writing style. Her other notable works include "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek," "The Living," and "The Maytrees." Dillard's writing often explores themes of nature, spirituality, and the human experience, making her one of the most respected voices in contemporary literature.

Detailed Information

ISBNs and Formats

Hardcover: ISBN-13: 9780060915186

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780060915193 (The ebook for "An American Childhood" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

eTextbook: ISBN-13: 9780060915209 (The ebook for "An American Childhood" is available right here on eCampus.com!)

Trade Paperback: ISBN-13: 9780060915186

Rental Options: Available through eCampus.com with various rental durations

Publication Details

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Publication Date: October 15, 2013

Number of Pages: 272

Language: English

Item Weight: 0.484 pounds

Dimensions: 5.50 x 8.00 x 0.75 inches

Other Editions and Formats

Other editions of "An American Childhood" include hardcover and trade paperback formats. The book has been widely praised for its lyrical prose and poignant storytelling, making it a valuable addition to any literary collection.

Related ISBNs:

9780060915193

9780060915209

0060915188

Note: The ISBNs listed above are accurate and specific to the formats mentioned. Always ensure that rental options are available through eCampus.com for all listed formats.

Excerpts

An American Childhood

Chapter One

When everything else has gone from my brain -- the President's name, the state capitals, the neighborhoods where I lived, and then my own name and what it was on earth I sought, and then at length the faces of my friends, and finally the faces of my family-when all this has dissolved, what will be left, I believe, is topology: the dreaming memory of land as it lay this way and that.

I will see the city poured rolling down the mountain valleys like slag, and see the city lights sprinkled and curved around the hills' curves, rows of bonfires winding. At sunset a red light like housefires shines from the narrow hillside windows; the houses' bricks burn like glowing coals.

The three wide rivers divide and cool the mountains. Calm old bridges span the banks and link the hills. The Allegheny River flows in brawling from the north, from near the shore of Lake Erie, and from Lake Chautauqua in New York and eastward. The Monongahela River flows in shallow and slow from the south, from West Virginia. The Allegheny and the Monongahela meet and form the westward-wending Ohio.

Where the two rivers join lies an acute point of flat land from which rises the city. The tall buildings rise lighted to their tips. Their lights illumine other buildings' clean sides, and illumine the narrow city canyons below, where people move, and shine reflected red and white at night from the black waters.

When the shining city, too, fades, I will see only those forested mountains and hills, and the way the rivers lie flat and moving among them, and the way the low land lies wooded among them, and the blunt mountains rise in darkness from the rivers' banks, steep from the rugged south and rolling from the north, and from farther, from the inclined eastward plateau where the high ridges begin to run so long north and south unbroken that to get around them you practically have to navigate Cape Horn.

In those first days, people said, a squirrel could run the long length of Pennsylvania without ever touching the ground. In those first days, the woods were white oak and chestnut, hickory, maple, sycamore, walnut, wild ash, wild plum, and white pine. The pine grew on the ridgetops where the mountains' lumpy spines stuck up and their skin was thinnest.

The wilderness was uncanny, unknown. Benjamin Franklin had already invented his stove in Philadelphia by 1753, and Thomas Jefferson was a schoolboy in Virginia; French soldiers had been living in forts along Lake Erie for two generations. But west of the Alleghenies in western Pennsylvania, there was not even a settlement, not even a cabin. No Indians lived there, or even near there.

Wild grapevines tangled the treetops and shut out the sun. Few songbirds lived in the deep woods. Bright Carolina parakeets-red, green, and yellow-nested in the dark forest. There were ravens then, too. Woodpeckers rattled the big trees' trunks, ruffed grouse whirred their tail feathers in the fall, and every long once in a while a nervous gang of emptyheaded turkeys came hustling and kicking through the leaves-but no one heard any of this, no one at all.

In 1753, young George Washington surveyed for the English this point of land where rivers met. To see the forestblurred lay of the land, he rode his horse to a ridgetop and climbed a tree. He judged it would make a good spot for a fort. And an English fort it became, and a depot for Indian traders to the Ohio country, and later a French fort and way station to New Orleans.

But it would be another ten years before any settlers lived there on that land where the rivers met, lived to draw in the flowery scent of June rhododendrons with every breath. It would be another ten years before, for the first time on earth, tall men, and women lay exhausted in their cabins, sleeping in the sweetness, worn out from planting corn.

An American Childhood. Copyright © by Annie Dillard. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.

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Excerpted from An American Childhood by Annie Dillard
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.