Literary History

The city of Cambridge has been highly literate since the foundation of Harvard in 1636. With almost 400 years of graduates loafing around Cambridge after school, the sheer quantity of literary history here is astonishing.

The first printing press in British North America would print the Bay Psalm Book, the continent’s first publication. Harvard boasts a collection of roughly 17 million books. From the powerhouse celebrity Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to the author of Curious George, Harvard Square has an incredible history of printing, storytelling, and poetry. Walk the back roads of Harvard Square and Brattle Street and relive the evolution of reading and writing in one of the nation’s most literate cities.