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Edmund Wilson felt this collection of twenty-four stories, originally published in 1934, contains some of Walter Edmonds' best work. The AtlanticMonthly wrote thar "Upstate New York has provided Edmonds with an inexhaustible store of characters one would like co know." A number of the stories were award-winnrng and appeared in such collections as Best Stories of 1929 and The O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories."Black Wolf," The End of the Towpath," Death of Red Peril"-these and ochers faithfully depict an era and region for which Edmonds became chiefliterary spokesman. Episodic and anecdotal, chey catch in various ways something of the nuances of real life as it was in the days when the Erie Canaloffered a passage west for many travelers and settlers and a livelihood for many more.

This book is really a "best of," as chosen by the author himself. These are Carmer's favorite pieces, drawn from three decades of work. He mixes leisurely reminiscences with folklore, verse, and portraits of Upstate's diverse population.Geographically, they range from Niagara Falls to Montauk Point, and include pieces on the fate of Native Americans, ghost stories, tall stories, character sketches, a piece on the erosion of New York State's natural beauty, as well as poems and works of wit and humor.

In simple, darkly faceted stories, Philander Deming writes as a person whose childhood knowledge of the Adirondacks has been honed to a fine sense for its potential human tragedy.In this, the first collection of his best work, a haunting vision of the Adirondacks comes through that is hard to forget. Deming's themes revolve around deception and self-deception, loneliness, and good intentions gone awry. Most of his stories occur just before or after the Civil War. In almost every story, however, Deming shows his characters looking back towards the mountains, from the Mohawk or St. Lawrence Valley or from lonely settlements on the edge of the forest, or across Lake Champlain.Few Adirondack writers have been so convincing in conveying the keen isolation of life in the northern forest and its peculiar effects on the human mind. The wilderness community is cruel, fostered by ignorance and isolation. In the end, the mountains, seemingly a neutral back drop against which individuals confront a collective morality, are the real source of his inspiration.