Book excerpt: Picturesque America was a two-volume set of books describing and illustrating the scenery of America, which grew out of an earlier series in Appleton and 's Journal. It was published by D. Appleton and Company of New York in 1872 and 1874 and edited by the romantic poet and journalist William Cullen Bryant and (1794-1878 and ), who also edited the New York Evening Post. The layout and concept was similar to that of Picturesque Europe. The work and 's essays, together with its nine hundred wood engravings and fifty steel engravings, are considered to have had a profound influence on the growth of tourism and the historic preservation movement in the United States.