The Penn State University Press is pleased to introduce Metalmark Books, a joint imprint of the Press and the University Libraries at Penn State. Books published under this imprint are selected from the collections of the University Libraries. They may be viewed online or ordered as print-on-demand paperbacks. Initially, books published under the Metalmark imprint will be chosen from the Libraries' extensive Pennsylvania holdings. Over time, the scope will broaden to include other significant out-of-print titles.These five Metalmark reprints preserve and make available once again some of the early writing of folklorist Henry W. Shomaker. He authored hundreds of pamphlets and books on nature, history, and folklore. He was publisher of several influential newspapers in Pennsylvania, including the Altoona Tribune and the Reading Eagle. He became the first state folklorist in America, one of the first chairs of the Pennsylvania Historical Commission, and an influential member of the State Forest Commission and the State Geographic Board.

Pennsylvania Deer and Their Horns (Metalmark)

Literature & Fiction

Shoemaker, Henry W.

Literary

Metalmark

Published in 1916, this illustrated edition of Penn’s Grandest Cavern begins with several legends of Penn’s Cave and the surrounding area, followed by a description and history, all compiled and written by Henry W. Shoemaker. His description of the caverns reads like a travel guide, with information about not only the cave but also its formations, such as “The Lobster’s Claw,” “Statue of Liberty,” and “Garden of the Gods.” Shoemaker provided his readership with advice on the best ways to travel to the cave, including appropriate trains to take, and a review of the accommodations there. A history traces the ownership of the property and details its exploration and development into a tourist site. Shoemaker also noted how Penn’s Cave compared to other local caves and their development. This volume presents seven of Shoemaker’s stories relating to Penn’s Cave and Penn’s Valley, including two of his most famous legends: “The Legend of Penn’s Cave” and “Nita-nee: The Indian Maiden for Whom Nittany Mountain Was Named.”

Penn's Grandest Cavern: The History, Legends and Description of Penn's Cave in Centre County (Metalmark)

Religion & Spirituality

Pennsylvania Lion or Panther & Felis Catus in Pennsylvania? (Metalmark)

History

Americas

More Allegheny Episodes: Legends and Traditions, Old and New, Gathered Among the Pennsylvania Mountains (Metalmark)

Henry W. Shoemaker (1880–1958) was known for his deep love for the wilderness and native cultures of Pennsylvania. The state’s first official folklorist, he wrote more than twenty books detailing Pennsylvania’s modern mythology. Pennsylvania Mountain Stories is perhaps Shoemaker’s definitive collection of folktales. 
The idea for this book came to Shoemaker during his college years, when he spent his vacations traveling through the mountains of Pennsylvania—on foot, on horseback, or by buggy. He claimed that he heard the stories, “mostly after supper,” from people he met at lumber camps, farmhouses, and backwoods taverns. “As so many of the tales are devoted to subjects of a more or less supernatural order they cannot very well be true,” he writes, but then hastens to add, “neither are they of the author’s invention.” 
In this ethereal space between fact and fiction, Pennsylvania Mountain Stories reveals the values, the passions, the obsessions of the people who told them. This volume, published under the Metalmark Books imprint, contains a facsimile reproduction of the 1911 edition, originally published by the Reading Times Publishing Company.

Pennsylvania Mountain Stories (Metalmark)

Allegheny Episodes: Folk Lore and Legends Collected in Northern and Western Pennsylvania (Metalmark)

Pennsylvania State University Press

Published in 1916, Juniata Memories was Henry W. Shoemaker’s eighth volume of Pennsylvania folklore. Written in the author’s typical literary style, this volume includes twenty-six legends set in Central Pennsylvania and the Juniata Valley. These stories, “secured from old people, hermits, farmers, lumbermen, teamsters, hostlers, hunters, trappers, old soldiers, and their ladies,” prominently feature the Stone, Kishacoquillas, and Penn’s Valleys and the many towns that lie within and around them, such as Huntingdon, Lewistown, and Selinsgrove. The stories share a common theme with those in many of Shoemaker’s other volumes, portraying Pennsylvania’s pioneers as having a decidedly spiritual connection with nature.Juniata Memories includes some of Shoemaker’s best-known legends, such as “Nita-Nee: A Tradition of a Juniata Maiden” (the story of Mount Nittany’s formation in Centre County) and “The Standing Stone: A Legend of the Ancient Oneidas” (set in Huntingdon County). These popular tales stand alongside Shoemaker’s telling of famous area love stories, ghost lore, supposed Indian legends, hunting lore, and even a story of buried treasure along the Susquehanna River. The volume is illustrated with scenic turn-of-the-century photographs taken by the Pennsylvania Railroad’s official photographer.

Juniata Memories: Legends Collected in Central Pennsylvania

Metalmark Books

Black Forest Souvenirs was inspired by Henry Shoemaker’s early experience in the Black Forest of Germany and the mystical draw of its vast expanse of hemlocks, spruces, and pines interspersed with lumbermen and roaming wildlife. On trips to Clinton, Potter, McKean, and Lycoming Counties in Pennsylvania between 1899 and 1902, Shoemaker discovered forests still intact, evoking the romantic ideal of the German Schwarzwald. However, upon returning to the mountains five years later, he found these forests desolated by the logging industry, practically a ruin—a vision far from the romanticized wilderness he had encountered early in life. This destruction inspired Shoemaker to attempt to preserve the region’s folklore, recording stories and tales told by elderly residents of the area. Traversing the line between fact and fiction, Black Forest Souvenirs reveals a pristine landscape preserved in the minds of its people.This collection of legends from the northern regions of the state was originally printed by the Bright-Faust Printing Company in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1914 and includes photographs by William T. Clarke.

Black Forest Souvenirs: Collected in Northern Pennsylvania (Metalmark)

In this 1917 guidebook from the pre-automobile era, Henry Shoemaker breaks from his typical literary-folklore subjects to chronicle the natural and social landscapes of central Pennsylvania. The reader is introduced to the wildlife and the geographic features of Clinton, Centre, Mifflin, Union, Lycoming, Cameron, and Snyder Counties through Shoemaker’s detailed narration and anecdotal notes. A staunch opponent of automobile tourism, Shoemaker urges his readers to avoid this “deadly, soul destroying machine . . . fatal to the lover of scenery or the naturalist.” As most roads of the time were not suitable for travel by automobile, this volume gives the modern reader a glimpse into the touring norms of the early twentieth century—on foot, by carriage, or on horseback.In the text, Shoemaker points to supposed locations for numerous legends found in his collected works. Heavily illustrated with scenic turn-of-the-century photographs, Eldorado Found brings central Pennsylvania’s history to life.

Eldorado Found: The Central Pennsylvania Highlands; A Tourist's Survey (Metalmark)

Reference

Originally published in 1913 by the Bright Printing Company, In the Seven Mountains belongs to Henry Shoemaker’s robust corpus of tales and legends based on the folklore of Pennsylvania. This volume presents stories from the Seven Mountains, located in Mifflin, Centre, and Juniata Counties, through which Shoemaker traveled by carriage in 1912, stopping to speak with local residents and visit “scores of localities of historic and legendary” importance. In his distinctive literary voice, Shoemaker recounts colorful legends—tales of ghosts and hauntings, of elusive mountain lions and their “celebrity” hunters—as well as human interest stories, many of which feature central Pennsylvania landmarks such as Tussey Mountain and Bald Mountain. Weaving narratives of the supernatural, local history, wildlife, and Native American lore, Shoemaker preserves the region’s unique cultural heritage in a series of fantastical stories that blur the lines between truth and fiction. The text, reproduced in facsimile for the first time since its original printing, includes illustrations by S. W. Smith and W. W. Sholl.

In the Seven Mountains: Legends Collected in Central Pennsylvania (Metalmark)

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Books by Shoemaker, Henry W.