American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their WorkSimon and Schuster, 2007 M09 18 - 223 pages The 1850s were heady times in Concord, Massachusetts: in a town where a woman's petticoat drying on an outdoor line was enough to elicit scandal, some of the greatest minds of our nation's history were gathering in three of its wooden houses to establish a major American literary movement. The Transcendentalists, as these thinkers came to be called, challenged the norms of American society with essays, novels, and treatises whose beautifully rendered prose and groundbreaking assertions still resonate with readers today. Though noted contemporary author Susan Cheever stands in awe of the monumental achievements of such writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Louisa May Alcott, her personal, evocative narrative removes these figures from their dusty pedestals and provides a lively account of their longings, jealousies, and indiscretions. Thus, Cheever reminds us that the passion of Concord's ambitious and temperamental resident geniuses was by no means confined to the page.... |
Contents
Concord Massachusetts | 3 |
The Alcotts Arrive for the First Time | 7 |
Louisa Girl Interrupted | 12 |
Louisa in Love Henry David Thoreau | 16 |
Sic Vita | 20 |
Two Loves | 24 |
Ellen Sewall | 29 |
Money | 32 |
Stockbridge | 95 |
The Railroad | 101 |
Louisa May Alcott Returns | 113 |
Concord Again | 120 |
Thoreau | 127 |
Leaving Walden | 130 |
Shipwreck | 139 |
President Frank | 149 |
Emerson Pays for Everything | 35 |
Two Deaths | 39 |
The Curse of Salem | 42 |
The Execution | 49 |
Bronson Alcott Peddler Turned Pedant | 59 |
17 | 68 |
Wall of Fire | 74 |
Margaret Fuller the Sexy Muse | 81 |
The Margaret Ghost | 89 |
Local Martyr | 159 |
The Death of Thoreau | 167 |
Return and Illness | 175 |
Hawthorne Leaves Concord | 181 |
Little Women | 188 |
Concord Today | 198 |
Acknowledgments | 204 |
211 | |
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American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller ... Susan Cheever No preview available - 2006 |
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