"Please--no apple blossoms!" protests author Robert Price, speaking of his approach to the Johnny Appleseed story. For over a quarter century Mr. Price has followed the circuitous trail of the elusive folk hero. Says the author: "Perhaps my bent for the outdoors, travel, and music shows up in this book. John Chapman's story has only recently emerged from a cloud of popular sentimentalism to become a major national myth in which 'Johnny Appleseed' is a symbol of everything good associated with the development of the land. To show this evolution, I have tied his drama not just to history and folklore, but to American topography. Most of his trail I have trampled or driven over from Leominster, Mass., to Fort Wayne."
After rural school teaching and country newspaper reporting in the Middle West, the author graduated from Denison University, took M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Ohio State University and is now professor of English at Otterbein College.
Mr. Price has written John Chapman: A Bibliography of "Johnny Appleseed" in History, Literature and Folklore, and articles for the New England Quarterly and other magazines. The Library of Congress awarded him a grant-in-aid to complete the study for the present book.
