New York to Nova Scotia was originally published in 1986 to accompany a retrospective exhibition of the same name organized by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and has long been out of print. The chronology and personal spirit of Frank’s complex career as a photographer and filmmaker are evoked with previously unpublished letters, pictures, reviews and essays as well as 18 photographs by Frank. Some of the letters are by Frank; others were written by photographers and contemporaries, such as W. Eugene Smith, Louis Faurer, Keith Smith, and Gotthard Schuh, and by legendary curators Hugh Edwards and Robert Delpire.
Authors of the essays include Walker Evans, Jack Kerouac, Jonas Mekas, Allen Ginsberg and Robert Coles, as well as the exhibition curators, Philip Brookman and Anne W. Tucker. Other entries include Frank’s proposal to the Guggenheim Foundation in 1954 that started his legendary journey across America, a letter from an Arkansas State policeman who arrested Frank during his trip to produce the photographs in The Americans, still images from Frank’s films, and pictures of Frank throughout his career.