Matching short story to art

Matching short story to art
Friday, Oct. 18, 6-7 p.m.
A lecture on The Celestial Railroad: Nathaniel Hawthorne and American Art at the Shelburne Museum will look at Hawthorne’s short story “The Celestial Railroad.” Published in 1843, the story offers a skeptical view of the era’s new means of transport. With a demon manning the engine, and a reassuring conductor named Mr. Smooth-It-Away describing the sights, the train sets out from the City of Destruction, across the Valley of Despond, on its way to the Celestial City. In this illustrated lecture by Alexander Nemerov, one of America’s leading art historians, learn how Hawthorne’s views match — and do not match — the visions of the railroad in the paintings of American artists of his era. Nemerov is a professor at Stanford University.