New Hampshire sweeps over the diverse and isolated terrain of this quintessential New England state, describing its islands and mountains, the many hikes and highways a traveller may follow to discover its landscape, and the personalities this landscape inspired. Lawson looks at the legacy of Nathaniel Hawthorne and Robert Frost, who wrote enduringly about the state, its countryside, and people, and also a line of highly educated religious men and women who worked to tame the wildness of both the people and the land. In the records these individuals - John Tucke, Jeremy and Ruth Belknap of Dover, Eleazar Wheelock, founder of Dartmouth College, and Dr. Josiah and Mary Bartlett of Kingston - kept of their lives, Lawson finds a unique history of the Granite state.