Maryland Wits and Baltimore Bards

Local treasure Frank Shivers Jr. wields his prodigious knowledge of Baltimore's past in this first literary history of the region.

Baltimore, Shivers explains, with its courtly charm, crabby cuisine, and proximity to the Chesapeake Bay, lures writers for life, whether its Mencken and Poe or Barry Levinson and John Waters.

Is there a special quality in our Maryland way of life that is conducive to creative writing and to writers?... Frank Shivers has put together a well-researched, carefully documented, and entertaining study that focuses on these and other questions... The range of this study is extensive but well-managed.

Shivers has done the Maryland literary community, and literary historians in general, a tremendous service with this book... His eye for important detail, as well as the interestingly trivial, is more than just commendable. He reveals why Baltimore is called 'Mobtown,' where the expression 'hooker' originated, and where the story of George Washington and the cherry tree can first be found... A book any serious lover of Maryland literary history must read.