This is the first in a series of collections of fi ction and nonfi ction about Florida by legendary writers who came here—some to escape the chilly North, some to fi nd freedom, and some to investigate what the fuss was all about. From Audubon in 1834 to Dave Barry in 19 90, these writers reveal Florida’s natural beauty and her residents’ human foibles. In poetry, John Greenleaf Whittier exposes our shameful slave-holding past, and Elizabeth Bishop extols our turtles and sandbars and tropical rain. Jules Verne shoots a moon rocket off from Tampa, and Hunter Thompson delivers up his own gonzo brand of journalism in a story of marine salvage in the Keys. Hemingway rants about the government’s laxity in the face of tragedy, while Harriet Beecher Stowe off ers some advice on the time-honored practice of buying land in the Sunshine State. Florida has left its stamp on all of these authors: John James Audubon Ned Buntline John Muir Harriet Beecher Stowe John Greenleaf Whittier Frederick Remington James Weldon Johnson Jules Verne Stephen Crane Damon Runyon Zora Neale Hurston Ring Lardner John Dos Passos Wallace Stevens Elizabeth Bishop Ernest Hemingway Tennessee Williams John F. Kennedy Patrick D. Smith Isaac Bashevis Singer Hunter Thompson Russell Banks Carl Hiaasen Dave Barry