A POET'S BAZAAR: A Journey to Greece, Turkey and up the Danube
By
The first American edition of the famed author's episodic account of an 1840 journey through (mostly) Mediterranean lands. This is very much a storyteller's narrative; several stand-alone tales weave in (including at least one, ""My Boots,"" not published elsewhere), and the tone is impressionable, intensely personal--if not terribly reliable. (Andersen's depiction of Whirling Dervishes, for instance, demonstrates a total misunderstanding of this sect). Sail, wonderful images abound (on Liszt: ""He seemed to me a demon, nailed fast to the instrument. . .""; on the Mediterranean: ""The sea seemed to be only a blue veil, a starless heaven beneath us. . .""), and Andersen collectors as well as those interested in an innocently fresh take on last century's world will be pleased with this volume.