This is a study of the effect of their travels in Italy on thirteen American writers among them Washington Irving Nathaniel Hawthorne Harriet Beecher Stowe W D Howells and Henry James Dr Wright s thesis is that Italy was a major influence on the American writers of fiction who visited that country This is a study of the effect of their travels in Italy on thirteen American writers among them Washington Irving Nathaniel Hawthorne Harriet Beecher Stowe W D Howells and Henry James Dr Wright s thesis is that Italy was a major influence on the American writers of fiction who visited that country