The spirit of place -- Benjamin Franklin -- Hector St. John de Crevecoeur -- Fenimore Cooper's white novels -- Fenimore Cooper's leatherstocking novels -- Edgar Allan Poe -- Nathaniel Hawthorne and The scarlet letter -- Hawthorne's Blithedale romance -- Dana's Two years before the mast -- Herman Melville's Typee and Omoo -- Herman Melville's Moby Dick -- Whitman.