For the first time in this way he may come to see a great light; and with that light shining about him he may be prepared to write the first history of American literature.
What is a Kentucky book, is the one great question this work has elicited. Surely a Kentucky book is one written by a Kentuckian about Kentucky or Kentuckians and printed in Kentucky; surely it is a book written by a Kentuckian upon any subject under the sun, and published in any clime; surely it is one written in Kentucky by a citizen of any other state or country, regardless of the subject or place of publication, for, "in general, I have regarded the birthplace of a piece of literature more important than that of the author." But is a book, though treating of Kentucky or Kentuckians, regardless of its place of publication, whose author was not born in, nor for any appreciable period resided in, this state, entitled to be properly classified as a Kentucky work? The writer has responded in the negative to this question in the present work.
There have been several noted American authors who have written volumes about Kentucky or Kentuckians, and they themselves were not natives of this state, nor resided within its confines. Those early Western travelers rarely omitted Kentucky from their journeys. The first of them, F. A. Michaux, published his famous _Travels to the West of the Alleghany Mountains, in the States of Ohio, Kentucky, and Tennessee_, at London, in 1805; two years later F. Cuming's _Tour to the Western Country, through Ohio and Kentucky_, was printed at Pittsburg; and in 1817 John Bradbury got out the first edition of his now noted _Travels in the Interior of America_, at London. Bradbury died in 1823 and to-day lies buried in the cemetery at Middletown, Kentucky, near Louisville. George W. Ogden's _Letters from the West_ (New Bedford, 1823); W. Bullock's _Sketch of a Journey through the Western States_ (London, 1827); and Tilly Buttrick's _Voyages, Travels, and Discoveries_ (Boston, 1831), round out fairly well that group of Scotchmen, Englishmen, New Englanders, and what not, who found many interesting things in Kentucky a hundred years and more ago. Ogden spent two summers in Kentucky; Bullock owned a river-side tract near Ludlow, Kentucky, and old Bradbury sleeps in a quiet Kentucky hamlet, but neither of them may be properly classified as a real Kentuckian.