Literary Site: Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House - Concord, MA

Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House

Concord, MA

GPS: N42° 27.539;  W071° 20.097

Short Description: 

The Orchard House was the home of the Alcott Family. Both the father, Amos Bronson Alcott, and his daughter Lousia May Alcott, wrote several books while living here. It is located at 399 Lexington Road, Concord, MA.

Long Description:

Educator and philosopher Amos Bronson Alcott, his wife Abigail, and three surviving daughters, Anna, Louisa May, and Abigail May, moved to this country house in Concord, MA in 1858. Because it was surrounded apple trees, he name it the Orchard House.

This was the family home of the Alcott family for 19 years between 1858 to 1877. It was here that the middle daughter, Louisa May, wrote her classic Little Women (1868), as well as several other books. Bronson Alcott was also a writer. He wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson (1865 - published 1882), Tablets (1868), Concord Days (1872), and Table Talk (1877) while residing at the Orchard House.

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Visiting hours for Louisa May Alcott’s Orchard House:

November 1 - March 31
Monday - Friday, 11:00 - 3:00; Last tour at 3:00
Saturday, 10:00 - 4:30
Sunday, 1:00 - 4:30
Last tour at 4:30

April 1 - October 31
Monday - Saturday, 10:00 - 4:30
Sunday, 1:00 - 4:30
Last tour at 4:30

Closed: Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and January 1 & 2;
Opens at 12 noon on Patriots' Day (3rd Monday in April)

Wikipedia list the following books by Louisa May and Amos Bronson Alcott:

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Writings by Louisa May Alcott:

The Little Women trilogy:

Little Women or Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy (1868)
Good Wives (1869)
Little Men: Life at Plumfield with Jo's Boys (1871)

Other Novels:

The Inheritance (1849, unpublished until 1997)
Moods (1865, revised 1882)
The Mysterious Key and What It Opened (1867)
An Old Fashioned Girl (1870)
Will's Wonder Book (1870)
Work: A Story of Experience (1873)
Beginning Again, Being a Continuation of Work (1875)
Eight Cousins or The Aunt-Hill (1875)
Rose in Bloom: A Sequel to Eight Cousins (1876)
Under the Lilacs (1878)
Jack and Jill: A Village Story (1880)
Jo's Boys and How They Turned Out: A Sequel to "Little Men" (1886)

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Works by Amos Bronson Alcott:

Observations on the Principles and Methods of Infant Instruction (1830)
Conversations with Children on the Gospels (Volume I, 1836)
Conversations with Children on the Gospels (Volume II, 1837)
Concord Days (1872)
Table-talk (1877)
New Connecticut. an Autobiographical Poem (1887; first edition privately printed in 1882)
Sonnets and Canzonets (1882)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Philosopher and Seer: An Estimate of His Character and Genius in Prose and Verse (1882)
The journals of Bronson Alcott

Literary Sites - Louisa May Alcott - Boston, MA

Louisa May Alcott 

Boston, MA

N 42° 21.583 W 071° 03.990

Short Description:

The childhood home of the novelist Louisa May Alcott is at 20 Pinckney Street on Beacon Hill in Boston.

Long Description:

Louisa May Alcott was born on November 29, 1832. As a child she lived at 20 Pinckney Street with her parents Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott along with her three sisters: Anna Bronson Alcott, Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, and Abigail May Alcott. Her family was part of the Boston literary scene with such friends as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau.

She began writing at a young age and published her first story, at age 20, “The Rival Painters: a Tale of Rome”, in 1852, and her first book, Flower Fables in 1854. As an adult, in 1868, she wrote her most famous work "Little Women", a story about her childhood experiences with her three sisters.

A plaque in front of the house identifies the building as Louisa May Alcott's childhood home. it is inscribed:

20 Pinckney Street

As little girl Louisa May Alcott lived in rented
rooms at 20 Pinckney Street. The Alcott home
was part of the Boston literary scene during
the decades before the Civil War. Louisa's 
father Bronson Alcott, was a innovative 
educator whose friends included Ralph Waldo
Emerson, William Ellery Channing and
William Lloyd Garrison

In the 1880's he reputation and fortune secure,
Miss Alcott returned to Beacon Hill. She lived
at 10 Louisburg Square until her death.

Beacon Hill

10 Louisburg Square

Literary Site: Emily Dickinson Homestead - Amherst, MA

Emily Dickinson Homestead & Grave

Amherst, MA

GPS: N42° 22.555;  W072° 30.873

Short Description: 

The house where Emily Dickinson was born, lived all her life, wrote her poems, and died is located at 280 Main Street in Amherst, MA

Long Description:

Emily Elizabeth Dickinson (1830-1886) lived in this house in Amherst all her life. She was born into a prominent Massachusetts family. Her father was a lawyer and her grandfather was one of the founders of Amherst Academy and Amherst College. Emily attended Amherst Academy and entered nearby Mount Holyoke College Female Seminary for one year. In her thirties she became very reclusive and spent most her her time in her bedroom writing poetry. Nonetheless, she was well informed by virtue of the family subscriptions to literary journals and her own correspondence.

Emily Dickinson began writing poetry in her early twenties and and was very prolific by the time she was thirty. She eventually wrote 1800 poems. Her poems were stories in meter and rhyme drawn from everyday life. They were noted for their insight into human nature, concise style, brilliant imagery, and use of varied meter and irregular rhymes. The first book of her poetry was published in 1890, four years after her death. Publication was through the efforts of her sister Lavinia and editors Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Mabel Loomis Todd. Emily Dickinson is among the most read, admired, and loved poets in the world of literature.

In 1963, the Home of Emily Dickinson was placed on the National Register of Historic Places.

GPS: N42° 22.746; W072° 31.074

Emily Dickinson is buried only few hundred meters away from her home in North Amherst Cemetery.

Her most appropriate poem on the subject of death - a classic example of her wisdom and style.

"Because I could not stop for Death,
He kindly stopped for me;
The carriage held but just ourselves
And Immortality. 
We slowly drove, he knew no haste, 
And I had put away
My labor, and my leisure too,
For his civility.

We passed the school, where children strove
At recess, in the ring;
We passed the fields of gazing grain,
We passed the setting sun.

Or rather, he passed us;
The dews grew quivering and chill,
For only gossamer my gown,
My tippet only tulle.

We paused before a house that seemed
A swelling of the ground;
The roof was scarcely visible,
The cornice but a mound.

Since then 'tis centuries, and yet each
Feels shorter than the day
I first surmised the horses' heads
Were toward eternity."

Literary Site: Edward Bellamy House - Chicopee Falls, MA

Edward Bellamy House

Chicopee Falls, MA

GPS: N42° 09.364; W072° 35.041

Short Description: 

The Edward Bellamy House at 91-93 Church Street was the home to the American novelist whose most famous work Looking Backwards 2000 - 1887 expressed a Utopian vision for America.

Long Description:

Edward Bellamy's concerned with social and economic justice inspired his novel Looking Backwards, which was published in 1888. The book describes a Utopian vision for American society of the year 2000. The concept of the credit card was one of Bellamy's insights into the future. The vision expressed in this book inspired groups around the nation to political action and has been described as the basis for 19th century liberalism in America. At that time, Looking Backwards sold more copies than any other book published in America, except for Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Other books by Bellamy are: Six to One (1877), Dr. Heidenhoff's Process (1880), Miss Ludington's Sister (1884), To Whom This May Come (1888), Looking Backward 2000–1887 (1888), Equality (1898), The Duke of Stockbridge (1900).

The Edward Bellamy House is located at 91 - 93 Church Street. Bellamy's family moved to this house when he was two years old and he, mostly, lived here until his death in 1898. This a two story, white clapboard structure has a gable roof, three front bays and a single story porch on the north end. The doorway, at the right side bay, is flanked by Roman Doric pilasters and topped with a transom. A front cornice forms a pediment with a circular window.

On the right of the doorway is a two bay, two story wing with a cross gable roof. This wing has a second doorway between the two lower windows. A second set-back wing with two windows is at the south end of the home.

A lawn sign and a bronze plaque on the identifies the building as the Edward Bellamy House. The plaque is inscribed:

EDWARD BELLAMY HOUSE

HAS BEEN DESIGNATED A

REGISTERED NATIONAL 

HISTORIC LANDMARK

UNDER THE PROVISION OF THE

HISTORIC SITES ACT OF AUGUST 21, 1935

THIS SITE POSSESSES EXCEPTIONAL VALUE

IN COMMEMORATING OR ILLUSTRATING

THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

1972

Literary Site: Edward Gorey House - Yarmouth Port, MA

Edward Gorey House

Yarmouth Port, MA

GPS: N 41° 42.319 W 070° 14.563

Short Description: 

Edward Gorey House is located at 8 Strawberry Lane in Yarmouth Port, MA on Cape Cod.

Long Description:

Edward Gorey, an American author, illustrator, playwright, set, and costume designer. He was born in Chicago in 1925 and attended Harvard University. He established his eccentric artistic lifestyle during his college years. His first book, The Unstrung Harp, was published in 1953. Since then he published over 100 titles. He employs macabre humor and a distinctive style of illustration. During the 1960's he developed a cult following.

His most widely known title, the Vinegar Works trilogy, includes his most well known work, The Gashlycrumb Tinies, a abecedarian book published in 1963. Using each of the 26 letters of the alphabet, he relates, in rhyming dactylic couplets and with distinctive illustrations, how each of 26 children met an untimely and grisly death. Read the Gashlycrumb Tinnies: Link

Edward Gorey purchased this 200 year-old sea captain’s home in 1979. After his death, in 2000, the property was purchased by the Highland Street Foundation, in 2002. They operate the home as a museum from April through December.

Wikipedia lists over 100 books written by Edward Gorey:

The Unstrung Harp, Brown and Company, 1953
The Listing Attic, Brown and Company, 1954
The Doubtful Guest, Doubleday, 1957
The Object Lesson, Doubleday, 1958
The Bug Book, Looking Glass Library, 1959
The Fatal Lozenge: An Alphabet, Obolensky, 1960
The Curious Sofa: A Pornographic Tale by Ogdred Weary, Astor-Honor, 1961
The Hapless Child, Obolensky, 1961
The Willowdale Handcar: Or, the Return of the Black Doll, Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1962
The Beastly Baby, Fantod Press, 1962
The Vinegar Works: Three Volumes of Moral Instruction, Simon & Schuster, 1963
The Gashlycrumb Tinies
The Insect God
The West Wing
The Wuggly Ump, Lippincott, 1963
The Nursery Frieze, Fantod Press, 1964
The Sinking Spell, Obolensky, 1964
The Remembered Visit: A Story Taken From Life, Simon & Schuster, 1965
Three Books From Fantod Press (1), Fantod Press, 1966
The Evil Garden
The Inanimate Tragedy
The Pious Infant
The Gilded Bat, Cape, 1967
The Utter Zoo, Meredith Press, 1967
The Other Statue, Simon & Schuster, 1968
The Blue Aspic, Meredith Press, 1968
The Epiplectic Bicycle, Dodd and Mead, 1969
The Iron Tonic: Or, A Winter Afternoon in Lonely Valley, Albondocani Press, 1969
Three Books From The Fantod Press (2), Fantod Press, 1970
The Chinese Obelisks: Fourth Alphabet
Donald Has A Difficulty
The Osbick Bird
The Sopping Thursday, Gotham Book Mart, 1970
Three Books From The Fantod Press (3), Fantod Press, 1971
The Deranged Cousins
The Eleventh Episode
The Untitled Book
The Awdrey-Gore Legacy, 1972
Leaves From A Mislaid Album, Gotham Book Mart, 1972
The Abandoned Sock, Fantod Press, 1972
A Limerick, Salt-Works Press, 1973
The Lost Lions, Fantod Press, 1973
The Green Beads, Albondocani Press, 1978
The Glorious Nosebleed: Fifth Alphabet, Mead, 1975
The Grand Passion: A Novel, Fantod Press, 1976
The Broken Spoke, Mead, 1976
The Loathsome Couple, Mead, 1977
Dancing Cats And Neglected Murderesses, Workman, 1980
The Water Flowers, Congdon & Weed, 1982
The Dwindling Party, Random House, 1982
The Prune People, Albondocani Press, 1983
Gorey Stories, 1983
The Tunnel Calamity, Putnam's Sons, 1984
The Eclectic Abecedarium, Adama Books, 1985
The Prune People II, Albondocani Press, 1985
The Improvable Landscape, Albondocani Press, 1986
The Raging Tide: Or, The Black Doll's Imbroglio, Beaufort Books, 1987
Q. R. V. (later retitled The Universal Solvent), Anne & David Bromer, 1989
The Stupid Joke, Fantod Press, 1990
The Fraught Settee, Fantod Press, 1990
The Doleful Domesticity; Another Novel, Fantod Press, 1991
The Retrieved Locket, Fantod Press, 1994
The Unknown Vegetable, Fantod Press, 1995
The Just Dessert: Thoughtful Alphabet XI, Fantod Press, 1997
Deadly Blotter: Thoughtful Alphabet XVII, Fantod Press, 1997
The Haunted Tea-Cosy: A Dispirited and Distasteful Diversion for Christmas, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1998
The Headless Bust: A Melancholy Meditation on the False Millennium, Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1999

Literary Site: Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) - Springfield, MA

Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss)

Springfield, MA

N 42° 06.224 W 072° 35.137

Short Description:

Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) was born and raised in Springfield, MA. Many of his books were inspired by the people and places of Springfield.

Long Description

Dr. Seuss was born as Theodor Geisel on March 2, 1904 into a German American family in Springfield. His grandfather Theodor as born in Muhlhausen, Germany and emigrated to America in 1867. His grandmother Christina Schmaelzle was born Wurttemberg, Germany.  The family opened a successful brewery in Springfield. Soon it became one of the largest breweries in New England.   His German maternal grandparents, George J. Seuss and Margaretha Seuss, provided young Theodor with his pen name. His father Theodor Robert Geisel managed the family brewery and later became head of the Springfield parks department.

Theodor Geisel Boyhood Home

The Geisel family lived in an upper ,middle class neighborhood in the Forest Park section of Springfield at 74 Fairfield Street. His experiences in Springfield were to be the inspiration for many of his children's book.  One of his first books And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Street! was inspired by a street not far from his family home.

Theodor Geisel graduated Springfield Central High School in 1921 and graduated Dartmouth College in 1925. He entered the Ph.D program in Lincoln College, Oxford but quit to pursue a career in drawing. He moved to new York City in 1927 and married Helen Palmer whom he met at Oxford. He supported himself and his wife by creating advertising drawings for such companies as: General Electric, NBC, Standard Oil, and Narragansett Brewing Company.

Dr. Seuss books have sold over 222 million copies, and have been translated into more than 15 languages. According to Publishers Weekly, among the best-selling children's books of all time, 9 of the top 20 hardcover books were written by Theodor Geisel, including Green Eggs and Ham (4), The Cat in the Hat (9), One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish (13), Hop on Pop (16), Oh, The Places You'll Go (17) and Dr. Seuss's ABC (18).

The Dr. Seuss National Memorial Garden is located in the Quadrangle (21 Edwards St.) in Springfield.

The sculpture garden has five bronze sculptures ranging in size from small to huge each depicting a Dr. Seuss characters and Dr. Seuss himself. In addition, there is a twelve foot high replica of the book Oh, The Places You'll Go!, complete with the entire readable text.

The sculptures are:

1. Dr. Seuss and the Cat-In-The-Hat - Dr. Seuss is sitting at his desk with the Cat-In-The-Hat looking over his shoulder.

2. The Horton Court - A huge sculpture featuring Horton the Elephant, Thidwick the Big-Hearted Moose, Sam I Am, One Thing, Two Thing Conrad, and Sally. All the characters except Sally are placed on the pages of an open book. Sally is on a flat platform extending under the book.

3. The Storyteller - A twelve foot high replica of the book Oh, The Places You'll Go!, complete with the entire text. Standing next to it is the Grinch and his dog Max.

4. The Lorax - A small statue of the Lorax inscribed with the word Unless on its base.

5. The Yertl Garden - Yertl the Turtle sits atop a stack of his fellow turtles.

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street!

"All the long way to school
and all the way back
I've looked and I've looked
and kept careful track,

But all that I've noticed
except my own feet
was a horse and a wagon
on Mulberry Street"

--Dr. Seuss

And so begins a tale of a young boy's imagination that turns a horse and a wagon on Mulberry Street into a fantastic extravaganza.

Theodor Seuss Geisel's first children's book is "And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street!". Mulberry Street, the location for this story, is less than a mile from his boyhood home on Fairfield Street. The illustrations for this book contain Springfield imagery. A Mayor Fordis Parker look-alike is on the reviewing stand for the parade. The police officers riding red motorcycles, the traditional color of the iconic Indian Motorcycles manufactured in Springfield.

N 42° 06.102 W 072° 34.719

There is now a plaque near the site of one of the original homes on Mulberry Street acknowledging Mulberry Street as the the locale for the story. It is inscribed:

This was the site of one of Mulberry's Street's oldest

houses, Circa 1830. Mulberry Street was memorialized in

"AND TO THINK THAT I SAW IT ON MULBERRY STREET"

the first book authored by Springfield native

Theodore Geisel, known as Dr. Seuss

Literary Sites: The Mount, Edith Wharton's Home - Lenox, MA

The Mount

Edith Wharton's Home (1902 -1911)

Lenox, MA

GPS: N42° 19.859; W073° 16.911

Short Description: 

The Mount, the home of Edith Wharton from 1902 to 1911 is located at 2 Plunkett Street in Lenox, MA.

Dolphin Fountain

Bedroom

Dining Room

Library

Living Room

Long Description:

Edith Jones was born into the privileged world of New York society on January 24, 1862 to George Frederic Jones and Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander of New York City. At the age of 10 she gained access to her father's extensive library. This began her interest in the world of literature. She was highly regarded for her books on gardens and design, but most well known for her works of fiction.

In 1885, she married Edward Robbins Wharton. In 1902, she built The Mount, a 113 acre estate in Lenox, Massachusetts, which expresses her principles of garden and interior design. She lived at the Mount from 1902 until she moved to France in 1911. During her years at the Mount she wrote some of her most famous novels including Sanctuary (1903), The Fruit of the Trees (1907) along with the bestselling novels House of Mirth (1905) and the classic Ethan Frome (1911).

During her life Edith Wharton wrote over 40 books, including novels, short stories, poetry travel, architecture, garden and interior design. She was the first woman to be awarded the Pulitizer Prize in Literature for her 1921 novel The Age of Innocence and the first woman to be awarded an honorary doctor of letters from Yale University.

Edith Wharton died of a stroke on August 11, 1937 in Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt (now rue Edith Wharton). She is interred in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France.

The following is a listing of her works from Wikipedia (q.v.)

Novels:

The Touchstone, 1900
The Valley of Decision, 1902
Sanctuary, 1903
The House of Mirth, 1905
Madame de Treymes, 1907
The Fruit of the Tree, 1907
Ethan Frome, 1911
The Reef, 1912
The Custom of the Country, 1913
Summer, 1917
The Marne, 1918
The Age of Innocence, 1920 (Pulitzer Prize winner)
The Glimpses of the Moon, 1922
A Son at the Front, 1923
Old New York, 1924
The Spark (The 'Sixties), 1924
The Mother's Recompense, 1925
Twilight Sleep, 1927
The Children, 1928
Hudson River Bracketed, 1929
The Gods Arrive, 1932
The Buccaneers, 1938
Fast and Loose, 1938 (first novel, written in 1876–1877)

Poetry:

Poetry Verses, 1878
Artemis to Actaeon and Other Verse, 1909
Twelve Poems, 1926

Short story collections:

The Greater Inclination, 1899
Souls Belated, 1899
Crucial Instances, 1901
The Reckoning, 1902
The Descent of Man and Other Stories, 1903
The Other Two, 1904
The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories, 1908
Tales of Men and Ghosts, 1910
Xingu and Other Stories, 1916
Old New York, 1924
Here and Beyond, 1926
Certain People, 1930
Human Nature, 1933
The World Over, 1936
Ghosts, 1937
Roman Fever, 1934
"The Angel at the Grave"

Non-fiction:

The Decoration of Houses, 1897
Italian Villas and Their Gardens, 1904
Italian Backgrounds, 1905
A Motor-Flight Through France, 1908 (travel)
France, from Dunkerque to Belfort, 1915 (war)
French Ways and Their Meaning, 1919
In Morocco, 1920 (travel)
The Writing of Fiction, 1925 (essays on writing)
A Backward Glance, 1934 (autobiography)
As editor The Book of the Homeless, 1916
Edith Wharton died of a stroke on August 11, 1937 in Le Pavillon Colombe, her 18th-century house on Rue de Montmorency in Saint-Brice-sous-Forêt (now rue Edith Wharton). She is interred in the American Cemetery in Versailles, France.