Louisa May Alcott is My Passion
Begun in 2010, this blog offers analysis and reflection by Susan Bailey on the life, works and legacy of Louisa May Alcott and her family. Susan is an active member and supporter of the Louisa May Alcott Society, the Fruitlands Museum and Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House.
I just created a page with personal recommendations of places to visit and things to do while visiting Concord, Massachusetts. The one thing I could not recommend is hotels because I live too close to Concord to have stayed overnight. Here's some recommendations for those of you who want to indulge in living history (to …
Continue reading "Coming to Concord this summer? Here’s some recommendations"
I don't care what anyone says: I believe that Henry David Thoreau was a romantic. True, he certainly preferred his solitude over the company of others (although he and his brother at one time loved a woman named Ellen, enough to want to marry her, and it's rumored that Thoreau loved Lidian Emerson), but I …
There's a terrific article on the Concord Patch written by a licensed Concord tour guide, Harry Beyer. He takes you on a tour of the Alcott family plot at Sleepy Hollow cemetery. Here's a teaser from the article: Louisa May was an active abolitionist, helping to shelter runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad. She was also an early …
Continue reading "Take a tour of the final resting place of the Alcotts"
Here's a podcast where you can listen to Susan Cheever talk about her latest book, Louisa May Alcott A Personal Biography, plus another podcast on her fascinating study on the Concord authors. American Bloomsbury. Read about and listen to the podcasts here. What did I think about her books? Read my review of Louisa May …
Here's a great essay by Klara Stephanie Szlezák where she concludes that staging is critical to the success of an historical homestead. Kudos to Orchard House for the brilliance of its staging which so beautifully captures not just the era Louisa May Alcott lived in, but her home, her family and her classic, Little Women. …
Continue reading "What makes Orchard House such a compelling historical site?"
1. What inspired you to write a fictional account of Lidian and Waldo Emerson? It took me a long time to decide to write a nocel about Lidian and Waldo. At first, I just had a lot of questions about Lidian, especially about why she was relatively absent from so many biographies of her husband, …
Continue reading "An interview with Amy Belding Brown, author of Mr. Emerson’s Wife"
I just ordered a bunch of new books and needed to rearrange my book shelves to get everything to fit. In the midst of the rearranging, I pulled out my copy of The Alcotts Biography of a Family and discovered a promotional photo of the author, Madelon Bedell, and an interview released by the publisher’s …
I had the privilege yesterday of meeting author Amy Belding Brown who as you know, wrote the historical novel, Mr. Emerson’s Wife , based upon the lives of Waldo and Lidian Emerson and their relationships with Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and other famous Transcendentalists. Sharing lattes together at a local cafe/country store, Amy and …
Continue reading "Meeting Amy Belding Brown, author of “Mr. Emerson’s Wife”"
Reading the last few words, I slowly closed Mr. Emerson’s Wife and felt a welling up inside of emotion. I was so tied to the character of Lidian Jackson Emerson that I felt they were her emotions too. This is how Amy Belding Brown's book hit me. I lived inside of Mr. Emerson's Wife for …
I know I said I would not finish American Bloomsbury but I really do enjoy Susan Cheever's writing style despite the problems her books pose. This is the second non-fiction book I've read by Cheever and it's frustrating that her work is so uneven. She is either utterly brilliant or totally inane. Despite several factual …
