Most people who write travel books about famous authors' homes believe, mistakenly, that authors are celebrities. Or, at the very least, they value writers' life stories more than their works. Art Seamans is different, and that's what's special about The Dead One Touched Me From the Past: A Walk With Writers Through the Centuries (Breakwater Books, $18.95).

Seamans is an emeritus professor of English literature. When he seeks out William Wordsworth's house in the Lake District or scenes Elizabeth Barrett Browning would have known in Italy, he's looking for heightened insight into the books themselves. He writes vividly and clearly, without preconceived notions but with plenty of background.

For example, at Newstead Abbey, the mock castle that Byron inherited when he was 10, he reminds us that a previous owner--the poet's uncle, known as the Wicked Lord--killed the deer, chopped down the trees, kept his horses in the chapel and one of the servants in his bed, and killed a neighbour with a sword: facts that speak to the poet's genetic endowment.

In Wales, Seamans finds that the duplex where Dylan Thomas was born and reared is empty. As so many literary visitors do, he moves on to Laugharne, where Thomas did much of his writing in a bicycle shed overlooking the tidal flat. The minute Seamans steps into the local pub, the drinkers "knew exactly why we were there without being told".

One of the most effective pieces is an essay on the Newfoundland of E.J. Pratt, which, being rooted in outport life and colonialism, no longer exists. Even the house where Pratt was born "had disappeared, and only a stone monument in front of the post office reminds the visitor" of his connection to the hamlet of Western Bay. "Although I wished to talk to an elderly gentleman who had lived [there] many years, [a companion] urged that we leave since the snow was coming down heavily." Sadness and gloom.

KAPLAN'S DEPARTURE

Fans of American writer Robert D. Kaplan may be pleasantly surprised by Mediterranean Winter: The Pleasures of History and Landscape in Tunisia, Sicily, Dalmatia, and Greece (Random House, $37.95). This travel memoir is a departure from Kaplan's usual roving social analysis and reporting from global trouble spots.

Kaplan's new book is based on a series of off-season journeys that he took in the 1970s. Inspired by the works of artists such as Auguste Rodin and Paul Klee, as well as by books about the classical Greek and Roman worlds, Kaplan set out with very little money and no return ticket, planning to support himself by selling articles along the way. His travels took him to both famous and little-known archaeological sites, ancient mosques and temples, isolated Christian monasteries, damp seaside towns, and teeming cities.

More than a travelogue, Mediterranean Winter is a chronicle of the author's discovery of himself as a writer. He also reminisces on how the landscapes moved him to learn about their history and culture, observing that "all intellectual life rests ultimately on aesthetics." For Kaplan, real travel is not about taking physical risks but about the acquisition of what he calls "a true education". Kaplan's love of history is infectious, and his erudite descriptions and insights resonate long after journey's end.