Where in the book

From the 19th century, writers have mined their hometowns and sunk new roots in Maine

March 06, 2011|Janet Mendelsohn, Globe Correspondent

Maine is the backdrop for countless books beloved by children and adults, and the home or stomping ground of writers from Henry David Thoreau to Stephen King. Traveling from along the Canadian border south to Kittery and west into the woods, here follows an admittedly incomplete literary guide to the Pine Tree State.

VAN BUREN Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s epic poem “Evangeline: A Tale of Acadie’’ (1847) is fictionalized history, but its heroine became a mythic figure, particularly in Nova Scotia (Acadie) and Louisiana, where the story unfolds. In northern Aroostook County, Acadian Village is a reconstructed 1700s museum village in Van Buren. Anne Roy, director, said the marble statue of Evangeline honors all her displaced forebears, explaining, “When Acadians expelled from Acadie didn’t want to talk about their past, they would always refer to Longfellow’s poem.’’ Acadian Village, Route 1, guided tours June to September, 207-868-5042, www.connectmaine.com/acadianvillage

BAXTER STATE PARK Thoreau made three hiking trips up Mount Katahdin and across the Penobscot, Kennebec, and St. John watershed region. In 1864, two years after his death, Thoreau’s observations were collected in “The Maine Woods,’’ which still reflects the wild beauty of the park, the state’s finest jewel. Note: GPS units are notoriously inaccurate here. Baxter State Park. 207-723-5140,www.baxterstateparkauthority.com

OLD TOWN “Mail,’’ Mameve Medwed’s witty 1997 debut novel about starting over, begins with Katinka’s mother nagging her by phone from this town north of Bangor.

RANGELY Louise Dickinson Rich’s family lived in a backwoods western settlement called Middle Dam, near Rangeley, in the 1930s. Her best known work, “We Took to the Woods’’ (1942), is a window into that life.

BANGOR King’s characters inhabit at least 30 places statewide, real and imaginary, including Sanford (“The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon’’), and Castle Rock, a fictional town northwest of Lewiston, where King, who owns a house in Bangor, set the series that ran from “Different Seasons’’ (1982) to “Needful Things’’ (1991). Novelist Tabitha King, Stephen’s wife, invented another small town for her Nodd’s Ridge, Maine, series.

WATERVILLE This mill town may have inspired Richard Russo’s 2002 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “Empire Falls,’’ but a pizza parlor in Skowhegan became the Empire Grill, a vintage diner, for the HBO movie starring Paul Newman. The cafe closed last year.