The city's rich literary ancestry isn't something the casual visitor is likely to spot. ''Baltimore is not trying to impress or toot its own horn," says Shivers. ''You up in Boston had a tourist trail for decades. People come here looking for sites, they're not going to get much help."
Shivers says the city is developing a literary trail for visitors -- ''In three years, you'll have an easier time" -- but in the meantime, with a little digging, you can find several interesting spots.
Mencken We had to search the Web to find the location of his grave in Loudon Park Cemetery west of downtown. And though Henry Louis Mencken's house is a National Historic Landmark, it's been closed to the public since 1997 for lack of money. There's a Mencken Room at the nearby Enoch Pratt Free Library, open to the public only one day a year: the Saturday closest to his birthday, Sept. 12.
Fitzgerald, Hamilton, Baker, Stein The historic district of Bolton Hill, just northwest of downtown and within walking distance of the train station and many of the city's cultural sites, has been home to a Who's Who of writers. It's a beautiful neighborhood, with graceful 19th-century Baltimore architecture and tree-lined streets. The former homes of several writers are identified with round, blue markers. The pale gray house at 1307 Park Ave. is the last place Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, lived together in the early 1930s and where he is thought to have had the breakdown detailed in ''The Crack-Up." Directly across the street was the home of Hamilton, whose book ''Mythology" is still the standard text on the subject after 60 years. Others from Park Avenue include journalist, humorist, and Pulitzer Prize winner Baker (1501 Park) and ''The Lives of a Cell" physician and essayist Thomas (1819 Park). Houses in the neighborhood include that of Stein (2408 Linden Ave.).
