Synopses & Reviews
Even the most devoted readers of nineteenth-century American literature often assume that the men and women behind the masterpieces were as dull and staid as the era's static daguerreotypes. Susan Cheever's latest work, however, brings new life to the well-known literary personages who produced such cherished works as
The Scarlet Letter,
Moby-Dick,
Walden, and
Little Women. Rendering in full color the tumultuous, often scandalous lives of these volatile and vulnerable geniuses, Cheever's dynamic narrative reminds us that, while these literary heroes now seem secure of their spots in the canon, they were once considered avant-garde, bohemian types, at odds with the establishment.
These remarkable men and women were so improbably concentrated in placid Concord, Massachusetts, that Henry James referred to the town as the biggest little place in America. Among the host of luminaries who floated in and out of Concord's American Bloomsbury as satellites of the venerable intellect and prodigious fortune of Ralph Waldo Emerson were Henry David Thoreau perpetual second to his mentor in both love and career; Louisa May Alcott dreamy girl and ambitious spinster; Nathaniel Hawthorne dilettante and cad; and Margaret Fuller glamorous editor and foreign correspondent.
Perhaps inevitably, given the smallness of the place and the idiosyncrasies of its residents, the members of the prestigious circle became both intellectually and romantically entangled: Thoreau serenaded an infatuated Louisa on his flute. Vying with Hawthorne for Fuller's attention, Emerson wrote the fiery feminist love letters while she resided (yards away from his wife) in his guest room. Herman Melvillewas, according to some, ultimately driven mad by his consuming and unrequited affection for Hawthorne.
Far from typically Victorian, this group of intellectuals, like their British Bloomsbury counterparts to whom the title refers, not only questioned established literary forms, but also resisted old moral and social strictures. Thoreau, of course, famously retreated to a plot of land on Walden Pond to escape capitalism, pick berries, and ponder nature. More shocking was the group's ambivalence toward the institution of marriage. Inclined to bend the rules of its bonds, many of its members spent time at the notorious commune, Brook Farm, and because liberal theories could not entirely guarantee against jealousy, the tension of real or imagined infidelities was always near the surface.
Susan Cheever reacquaints us with the sexy, subversive side of Concord's nineteenth-century intellectuals, restoring in three dimensions the literary personalities whose work is at the heart of our national history and cultural identity.
Review
"Cheever's accomplishment here is in making this fab five come alive for a new generation....American Bloomsbury is a charming book, and a welcome addition to the writings about these incomparable figures of American history." Balitomire Sun
Review
"[Cheever's] small volume about American Transcendentalists proves so lively and absorbing that it may awaken our desire to read some classics our teachers neglected to bludgeon us with." Hartford Courant
Review
"Cheever has crafted a stirring book along the apex of love triangles, the edge of jockeying egos and the crest of creative bursts set against the crabbed human condition." Cleveland Plain Dealer
Review
"Essential reading for anyone with an interest in American letters." Library Journal
Review
"Susan Cheever's American Bloomsbury is a rather odd, and occasionally absorbing." Oregonian
Review
"[Cheever] does a wonderful job of tracing the constant overlap and interplay of common experience and shared ideas that helped to shape their remarkable output." Christian Science Monitor
Review
"[Cheever's] inclusion of the neglected Louisa May Alcott in this pantheon of greats is a refreshing gesture." Los Angeles Times
Review
"Cheever doesn't really offer much that's new, but she packages it all so nicely. Rather than revering them as 'static daguerreotypes,' she brings these icons to life as men and women who fell in painful love, lived in crowded quarters, tramped on muddy roads, and 'walked arm in arm under Concord's great elms.' She also does a wonderful job of resurrecting the 19th century itself, and reminding us of how often her subjects were cold, hungry well, the Alcotts, anyway uncomfortable, and at the mercy of unenlightened doctors who harmed at least as often as they healed." Marjorie Kehe, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire CSM review)
Synopsis
A group portrait of five Concord, Massachusetts, writers whose works were at the center of mid-nineteenth-century American thought and literature evaluates their interconnected relationships, influence on each other's works, and complex beliefs. 50,000 first printing.
Synopsis
Between 1840 and 1868, three houses on the same road in Concord, Massachusetts, were home to such writers as Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. In this brilliant, controversial, and fascinating history, noted author Susan Cheever explores how, exactly, Concord developed into the first American community devoted to idealism. 8 pages of photos.
Synopsis
A revelatory life of Clover Adams, casting a lens on her iconic marriage to the historian Henry Adams and her fatal embrace of photography in her final months
Clover, an inquisitive, loving, fiercely intelligent Boston Brahmin, married at twenty-eight the older and soon-to- be-eminent Henry Adams. She thrived in her role as an intimate to political insiders in Gilded Age Washington, where she was valued for her wit and taste by such artistic luminaries as Henry James and H. H. Richardson. Clover so clearly possessed, as one friend wrote, andldquo;all she wanted, all this world could give.andrdquo;
And yet at the center of her story is a haunting mystery. Why did Clover, having embarked on an exhilarating self-taught course of photography in the spring of 1883, end her life less than three years later by drinking from a vial of potassium cyanide, a chemical she used in developing her own photographs? The answer is revealed through Natalie Dykstraandrsquo;s original and dramatic discoveries regarding the thirteen-year Adams marriage.
The denouement of Cloverandrsquo;s death is equally compelling. Dykstra illuminates Cloverandrsquo;s enduring stature as a woman betrayed. And, most movingly, she untangles the complex and poignant truth of her shining and impossible marriage.
Synopsis
Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography and#160; The award-winning author of The Peabody Sisters takes a fresh look at the trailblazing life of a great American heroineand#8212;Thoreauand#8217;s first editor, Emersonand#8217;s close friend, first female war correspondent, passionate advocate of personal and political freedom.
About the Author
Susan Cheever is the bestselling author of eleven previous books, including five novels and the memoirs Note Found in a Bottle and Home Before Dark. Her work has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award and won the Boston Globe Winship Medal. She is a Guggenheim Fellow, a member of the Corporation of Yaddo, and a member of the Author's Guild Council. She writes a weekly column for Newsday and teaches in the Bennington College M.F.A. program. She lives in New York City with her family.
Table of Contents
List of Illustrationsand#8195;xiii
Prologueand#8195;xv
Part I: Youth
and#160;and#160;and#160;1.and#160;and#160;and#160;Three Lettersand#8195;5
and#160;and#160;and#160;2.and#160;and#160;and#160;Ellen Kilshawand#8195;10
and#160;and#160;and#160;3.and#160;and#160;and#160;Theme: and#8220;Possunt quia posse videnturand#8221;and#8195;20
and#160;and#160;and#160;4.and#160;and#160;and#160;Marianaand#8195;28
Part II: Cambridge
and#160;and#160;and#160;5.and#160;and#160;and#160;The Young Ladyand#8217;s Friendsand#8195;39
and#160;and#160;and#160;6.and#160;and#160;and#160;Elective Affinitiesand#8195;51
Part III: Groton and Providence
and#160;and#160;and#160;7.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;My heart has no proper homeand#8221;and#8195;71
and#160;and#160;and#160;8.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Returned into lifeand#8221;and#8195;89
and#160;and#160;and#160;9.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Bringing my opinions to the testand#8221;and#8195;105
Part IV: concord, boston, jamaica plain
and#160;and#160;and#160;10.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;What were we born to do?and#8221;and#8195;127
and#160;and#160;and#160;11.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;The gospel of Transcendentalismand#8221;and#8195;142
and#160;and#160;and#160;12.and#160;and#160;and#160;Communities and Covenantsand#8195;163
and#160;and#160;and#160;13.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;The newest new worldand#8221;and#8195;202
Part V: New York
and#160;and#160;and#160;14.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;I stand in the sunny noon of lifeand#8221;and#8195;223
and#160;and#160;and#160;15.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Flying on the paper wings of every dayand#8221;and#8195;235
and#160;and#160;and#160;16.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;A human secret, like my ownand#8221;and#8195;244
Part VI: Europe
and#160;and#160;and#160;17.and#160;and#160;and#160;Lost on Ben Lomondand#8195;269
and#160;and#160;and#160;18.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;Rome has grown up in my souland#8221;and#8195;282
and#160;and#160;and#160;19.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;A being born wholly of my beingand#8221;and#8195;315
Part VII: homeward
and#160;and#160;and#160;20.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;I have lived in a much more full and true wayand#8221;and#8195;353
and#160;and#160;and#160;21.and#160;and#160;and#160;and#8220;No favorable windand#8221;and#8195;369 and#160; Epilogue: and#8220;After so dear a stormand#8221;and#8195;379
Acknowledgmentsand#8195;393
Notesand#8195;397
Indexand#8195;451