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American Bloomsbury
American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work by Susan Cheever. Simon & Schuster, Inc.,2006
223 pages, Paperback
First published December 19, 2006
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April 16, 2019
They were the radical thinkers of the time, the hippies of their age, if you will. Hawthorne, Thoreau, Emerson, Alcott, and Fuller. Staunch abolitionists, helping runaway slaves, they were not shy in making their opinion known. That such a group of productive writers, thinkers, lived in such proximity was does to more than luck. Yes, like ideas called to like ideas, but it was the liberal doling out of money by Emerson, that made this possible. Though the Alcotts and the Hawthornes moved quite often, they always seemed to return, in some cases due to money problems or failed enterprises.
This book is a look at their personal lives, I thought, only touching on the professional. I felt sorry for all their wives, these were not easy men to live with. Thoreau was the only one who never married, sparing another mate some distress. Within were brief glimpses of how they thought, lived and interesected with each other's lives. Read this with my friend Cynda and we both felt the author inserted her own opinions, biases into the text much too liberally.
It was interesting though to read about these authors whose work still has such a prominent place in our time.
This book is a look at their personal lives, I thought, only touching on the professional. I felt sorry for all their wives, these were not easy men to live with. Thoreau was the only one who never married, sparing another mate some distress. Within were brief glimpses of how they thought, lived and interesected with each other's lives. Read this with my friend Cynda and we both felt the author inserted her own opinions, biases into the text much too liberally.
It was interesting though to read about these authors whose work still has such a prominent place in our time.
December 4, 2013
What an embarrassment. People have celebrated this book for making Emerson and the rest of the Transcendentalists accessible, but what they don't know -- or haven't realized -- is that Cheever's book is full of egregious errors and obvious lack of understanding and knowledge of her subject matter. Avoid this book; it's garbage. Instead, read Carlos Bakers' book _Emerson Among the Eccentrics_ for a well-crafted and responsibly researched take on the same milieu.
December 15, 2008
I read this book with high hopes because of its wonderful title. Alas, it is a deep disappointment. My purchase of it was based on a number of factors including personal enrichment, curiosity and interest in the subject, a New England location, the fact that the author's late father, John, is buried a few miles from my home, and it was on sale for $5.
I cannot believe an editor would have allowed this book to go to print. Cheever divides this story into four sections. In each section she repeats information and exact phrases she has used before. How many times do we need to be told that calomel is a form of mercury and was used to treat a variety of illnesses?
My real issue is the point of view. Cheever interjects herself and her own life into the narrative inappropriately and at the oddest times. When describing Hawthorne's death at an inn in Plymouth, NH, Cheever feels it is necessary to state that she and her family summered nearby, and that she had been to the Plymouth hospital on three occasions, and gives us exact details regarding her injuries. Who cares? It is extraneous to the subject. She describes taking her daughter to Fire Island at 3:30 in the morning to walk the beach on the same date and time that Margaret Fuller died in a shipwreck. She claims seeing a set of footprints on that beach in the middle of the night, implying the presence of Fuller's ghost. Is this nonfiction? If this book was to be a Susan Cheever memoir, one in which she compared the experiences of her own life growing up in an artistic family with that of Louisa May Alcott and the Transcendentalists, her use of the word "I" would be more acceptable. As is, it is amateurish and narcissistic. This is supposed to be a work of nonfiction, based on research. We don't need to hear about the author's life. At the very least a good editor would have insisted Cheever's personal experience relating to her subject be removed from the narrative. It could have been included in an afterword by the author.
There are moments in the book when Cheever shows promise and ability as a writer. There are a number of descriptive passages that do transport the reader to a time and a place. Sadly they are overshadowed by the unfortunate use of current colloquial terms and voyeuristic speculation. The narrative is disjointed and each part does not make for a satisfying whole. Where was her editor?
Since there were a number of positive reviews on Goodreads (and I thought maybe I was overly critical) I did further research and learned that several scholars have criticized Cheever for inaccuracy in quoted dates, times and facts. If a work of nonfiction is actually fictional....what is the point of reading it?
I cannot believe an editor would have allowed this book to go to print. Cheever divides this story into four sections. In each section she repeats information and exact phrases she has used before. How many times do we need to be told that calomel is a form of mercury and was used to treat a variety of illnesses?
My real issue is the point of view. Cheever interjects herself and her own life into the narrative inappropriately and at the oddest times. When describing Hawthorne's death at an inn in Plymouth, NH, Cheever feels it is necessary to state that she and her family summered nearby, and that she had been to the Plymouth hospital on three occasions, and gives us exact details regarding her injuries. Who cares? It is extraneous to the subject. She describes taking her daughter to Fire Island at 3:30 in the morning to walk the beach on the same date and time that Margaret Fuller died in a shipwreck. She claims seeing a set of footprints on that beach in the middle of the night, implying the presence of Fuller's ghost. Is this nonfiction? If this book was to be a Susan Cheever memoir, one in which she compared the experiences of her own life growing up in an artistic family with that of Louisa May Alcott and the Transcendentalists, her use of the word "I" would be more acceptable. As is, it is amateurish and narcissistic. This is supposed to be a work of nonfiction, based on research. We don't need to hear about the author's life. At the very least a good editor would have insisted Cheever's personal experience relating to her subject be removed from the narrative. It could have been included in an afterword by the author.
There are moments in the book when Cheever shows promise and ability as a writer. There are a number of descriptive passages that do transport the reader to a time and a place. Sadly they are overshadowed by the unfortunate use of current colloquial terms and voyeuristic speculation. The narrative is disjointed and each part does not make for a satisfying whole. Where was her editor?
Since there were a number of positive reviews on Goodreads (and I thought maybe I was overly critical) I did further research and learned that several scholars have criticized Cheever for inaccuracy in quoted dates, times and facts. If a work of nonfiction is actually fictional....what is the point of reading it?
December 4, 2013
This book repeats a lot of inaccurate cliches about these writers that haven't been taken seriously for a generation or two. A number of reviewers on Amazon have pointed out its factual errors. But what really surprised me was the old-school Confederate apologia that creeps in throughout the first three quarters and grows into an ugly rant when Cheever gets to the Transcendentalists' support for John Brown.
At the start of her discussion of John Brown, Cheever mentions about as briefly and vaguely as possible the sustained violence of the pro-slavery side before the war (though not really of slavery, which remains curiously abstract for her here, as elsewhere). But she describes the violence of Brown's raids in the goriest details she can imagine -- the sound of knife on bone, the smell of guts and vomit. It's the most vivid description in the book. In a familiar pattern, the constant, ubiquitous violence of slavery and its supporters gets barely an acknowledgement, but any violence by its opponents is recounted in lavish, horrified detail.
It never occurs to Cheever that anyone could have opposed slavery enough to feel violent resistance was justified. Brown is just a religious lunatic to her, or a "con man." And suddenly she has contempt for the subjects of her book, the same people who brilliance and importance she describes in rapturous superlatives everywhere else. She dismisses Thoreau and Alcott as "immature boys who had never been able to support themselves" (as if their poverty invalidated their politics) and Emerson -- who, as the "eminently practical father figure for those feckless boys," should have known better -- as an effete intellectual perhaps "too caught up in translations of Goethe and Pindar" to understand the reality of what he supported.
In fact, the whole Civil War seems misguided and unnecessary to her. She approvingly cites Robert Penn Warren's portrait of the war as the needless result of Northern zealotry: "Brown was a 'higher law man.' ... Unhappily, a corollary of this divine revelation was to make the South pay, and pay again. The disagreement might conceivably have been settled under terms of law, but ... there is only one way to conclude a theological argument: bayonets and bullets." I'm sure the people being exploited, beaten, raped, and murdered by their slave-drivers would have loved to see the "disagreement" settled amicably, if it only hadn't been for those irrational Northern theologians and their war of aggression.
Much of Cheever's perspective in this discussion comes from Warren, and she quotes him extensively. What she doesn't mention is that she's quoting from Warren's first book from 1929, back in his pro-segregation days as the de facto leader of the reactionary "Southern Agrarian" movement. He repudiated these earlier views in the 1950s when he became an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement. Cheever exploits Warren's moral and intellectual authority without ever acknowledging that he recanted the attitudes on which the book she cites was based.
And to top it all off, at the end of this ugly chapter, Cheever tries to suggest that the Transcendentalists were justly punished, though whether for their support of Brown or of the war itself is unclear: "The Civil War, when it came, would destroy Concord.... By the time it was over, both Hawthorne and Thoreau would be dead, Emerson would be on the path to the severe Alzheimer’s disease that crippled him so completely that at the end of his life he couldn't spell Concord, and Louisa May Alcott would have changed from a dreaming girl into an angry, sick, and very practical middle-aged spinster. Were they the victims of a greedy, warmongering South? Or did they help bring on the catastrophe with their own willful innocence and self-righteousness?" This is nuts. Thoreau's and Hawthorne's deaths had nothing to do with the Civil War, and neither did Emerson's Alzheimer's more than a decade later. Only the description of Alcott has anything to do with the war, though that too leaves so much out of the story, as Cheever should know. But applying the sexist caricature of the bitter old maid to Alcott at all is snide and inappropriate, as is the gratuitous and sadistic detail about Emerson's dementia. Emerson's dementia is clearly not gratuitous to Cheever, though. a crucial point in this discussion for Cheever, though. She centers her whole, incredibly vapid conclusion to this chapter on a description of an 1880 Emerson lecture "patched together by his daughter and his secretary because he was too far gone to write his own lectures and almost too far gone to deliver them" and then imagines his audience getting bored and staring out the window. Take that, Northern Aggressor!
A lot of what Cheever wants to do in this book is dish about how various famous people were in love with one another. Usually, she's wrong. It's like middle school gossip -- "I know who Nathaniel likes!" -- interspersed with purple passages about "the madness that envelops lovers on hot summer nights.” The title should have suggested how trite and and superficial the book would be. I should have read the reviews and spared myself. But I had no idea I was in for such old-school pro-Confederate bias. It's unpleasant.
At the start of her discussion of John Brown, Cheever mentions about as briefly and vaguely as possible the sustained violence of the pro-slavery side before the war (though not really of slavery, which remains curiously abstract for her here, as elsewhere). But she describes the violence of Brown's raids in the goriest details she can imagine -- the sound of knife on bone, the smell of guts and vomit. It's the most vivid description in the book. In a familiar pattern, the constant, ubiquitous violence of slavery and its supporters gets barely an acknowledgement, but any violence by its opponents is recounted in lavish, horrified detail.
It never occurs to Cheever that anyone could have opposed slavery enough to feel violent resistance was justified. Brown is just a religious lunatic to her, or a "con man." And suddenly she has contempt for the subjects of her book, the same people who brilliance and importance she describes in rapturous superlatives everywhere else. She dismisses Thoreau and Alcott as "immature boys who had never been able to support themselves" (as if their poverty invalidated their politics) and Emerson -- who, as the "eminently practical father figure for those feckless boys," should have known better -- as an effete intellectual perhaps "too caught up in translations of Goethe and Pindar" to understand the reality of what he supported.
In fact, the whole Civil War seems misguided and unnecessary to her. She approvingly cites Robert Penn Warren's portrait of the war as the needless result of Northern zealotry: "Brown was a 'higher law man.' ... Unhappily, a corollary of this divine revelation was to make the South pay, and pay again. The disagreement might conceivably have been settled under terms of law, but ... there is only one way to conclude a theological argument: bayonets and bullets." I'm sure the people being exploited, beaten, raped, and murdered by their slave-drivers would have loved to see the "disagreement" settled amicably, if it only hadn't been for those irrational Northern theologians and their war of aggression.
Much of Cheever's perspective in this discussion comes from Warren, and she quotes him extensively. What she doesn't mention is that she's quoting from Warren's first book from 1929, back in his pro-segregation days as the de facto leader of the reactionary "Southern Agrarian" movement. He repudiated these earlier views in the 1950s when he became an advocate for the Civil Rights Movement. Cheever exploits Warren's moral and intellectual authority without ever acknowledging that he recanted the attitudes on which the book she cites was based.
And to top it all off, at the end of this ugly chapter, Cheever tries to suggest that the Transcendentalists were justly punished, though whether for their support of Brown or of the war itself is unclear: "The Civil War, when it came, would destroy Concord.... By the time it was over, both Hawthorne and Thoreau would be dead, Emerson would be on the path to the severe Alzheimer’s disease that crippled him so completely that at the end of his life he couldn't spell Concord, and Louisa May Alcott would have changed from a dreaming girl into an angry, sick, and very practical middle-aged spinster. Were they the victims of a greedy, warmongering South? Or did they help bring on the catastrophe with their own willful innocence and self-righteousness?" This is nuts. Thoreau's and Hawthorne's deaths had nothing to do with the Civil War, and neither did Emerson's Alzheimer's more than a decade later. Only the description of Alcott has anything to do with the war, though that too leaves so much out of the story, as Cheever should know. But applying the sexist caricature of the bitter old maid to Alcott at all is snide and inappropriate, as is the gratuitous and sadistic detail about Emerson's dementia. Emerson's dementia is clearly not gratuitous to Cheever, though. a crucial point in this discussion for Cheever, though. She centers her whole, incredibly vapid conclusion to this chapter on a description of an 1880 Emerson lecture "patched together by his daughter and his secretary because he was too far gone to write his own lectures and almost too far gone to deliver them" and then imagines his audience getting bored and staring out the window. Take that, Northern Aggressor!
A lot of what Cheever wants to do in this book is dish about how various famous people were in love with one another. Usually, she's wrong. It's like middle school gossip -- "I know who Nathaniel likes!" -- interspersed with purple passages about "the madness that envelops lovers on hot summer nights.” The title should have suggested how trite and and superficial the book would be. I should have read the reviews and spared myself. But I had no idea I was in for such old-school pro-Confederate bias. It's unpleasant.
November 16, 2015
There are certain times where genius develops not just in one person, but in a whole community. Concord/Boston in the 19th Century was just such a place. The Alcotts, Emerson, Fuller, Hawthorne and Thoreau. These are the names that populate our history.
This is a well-written condensed history of these people and their lives. It also tells how their lives intersected and how they affected each other. They were abolitionists, naturalists, and educational revolutionaries.
I love reading about this time. Previously I had read a history about Louisa May Alcott and her father Bronson: Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. This book was a great complement to it.
This is a well-written condensed history of these people and their lives. It also tells how their lives intersected and how they affected each other. They were abolitionists, naturalists, and educational revolutionaries.
I love reading about this time. Previously I had read a history about Louisa May Alcott and her father Bronson: Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father. This book was a great complement to it.
January 17, 2022
So after finding that Susan Cheever in her biography of Louisa May Alcott tends to insert way too much of herself and her own life experiences (as well as of her personal philosophies and points of view) into the text proper of Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography and that her words, that her writing both thematically and stylistically therefore and for me very much diminishes and lessens the actual historical and biographical aspects of Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography and in my humble opinion in fact rendering Cheever’s presented text more into a personal memoir than into an academically sound and enlightening analysis of Louisa May Alcott’s life and times, I was naturally and of course also rather wondering whether the author’s, whether Susan Cheever’s American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margareft Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work might very well fall into the exactly the same type of trap (and that I therefore also began perusing American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work both with the latter firmly in mind and equally with very much, with considerable reading trepidation).
And unfortunately, my above stated worries regarding American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work perhaps being yet another account heavy with author, replete with Susan Cheever providing not only biographical information but her own annoying and personal memoir like interference, they have sadly proven to be absolutely and actually even quite horribly and vehemently justified.
For not only does Susan Cheever once again with American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work constantly interject and pontificate about nuggets of “knowledge” regarding her own Weltanschauung and her personal takes and thoughts on 19th century American history, society, transcendentalism, the Alcotts, the Hawthornes, the Emersons etc., even more so than with Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography, Cheever seems to make almost everything about herself in American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work and consistently offers up comparisons to her own life, to her own family, and often shows us scenarios that absolutely do not engage me (as I am interested in reading about the individuals listed in the book title and not about Susan Cheever, her life, her family and her personal philosophies), that yes, after about 50 odd pages of struggling through and not at all enjoying American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work and being totally bored with and by Susan Cheever’s self-centred narrative (and actually kind of thinking that she textually really and unpleasantly reminds me of Bronson Alcott, who also like Susan Cheever always seemed to have made everything about himself and his experiences), that I have decided to quit reading American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work and to as such also only consider one star for this at best pseudo biography.
Because honestly and for me, biographies which deal too much with the author and not enough with the actual subject or subjects who are supposed to be featured and shown, these drive me absolutely batty, and with American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Susan Cheever has certainly managed to sadly achieve this in a spectacularly annoying manner.
And unfortunately, my above stated worries regarding American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work perhaps being yet another account heavy with author, replete with Susan Cheever providing not only biographical information but her own annoying and personal memoir like interference, they have sadly proven to be absolutely and actually even quite horribly and vehemently justified.
For not only does Susan Cheever once again with American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work constantly interject and pontificate about nuggets of “knowledge” regarding her own Weltanschauung and her personal takes and thoughts on 19th century American history, society, transcendentalism, the Alcotts, the Hawthornes, the Emersons etc., even more so than with Louisa May Alcott: A Personal Biography, Cheever seems to make almost everything about herself in American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work and consistently offers up comparisons to her own life, to her own family, and often shows us scenarios that absolutely do not engage me (as I am interested in reading about the individuals listed in the book title and not about Susan Cheever, her life, her family and her personal philosophies), that yes, after about 50 odd pages of struggling through and not at all enjoying American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work and being totally bored with and by Susan Cheever’s self-centred narrative (and actually kind of thinking that she textually really and unpleasantly reminds me of Bronson Alcott, who also like Susan Cheever always seemed to have made everything about himself and his experiences), that I have decided to quit reading American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work and to as such also only consider one star for this at best pseudo biography.
Because honestly and for me, biographies which deal too much with the author and not enough with the actual subject or subjects who are supposed to be featured and shown, these drive me absolutely batty, and with American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work, Susan Cheever has certainly managed to sadly achieve this in a spectacularly annoying manner.
April 16, 2019
GR friend reminded me of belle-lettres. I have little experience with that type of writing. Usually I would be too picky-wicked to read editorial works published by Simon Schuster. However I was attracted by the almost effortless way I could learn of connections between the Transcendentalists and their friends and communities without having to study for a set aside period of time. Let Susan Cheever do the work.
Despite the 2-star rating, the group biography is not a complete waste of time and effort. What I was most hoping for was to be found in the book: A little more info on Thoreau as I have just read Walden and more info on L M Alcott as i have just Walden. It was just a little more information and just enough to answer my questions/fill in gaps.
So why the 2-star rating? What I appreciated was not enough for of the text, just a small part. And the big reason: Susan Cheever gets in front of her topic, editorializing with a sharp tongue. I should have known. On the cover, in small print, I read "Literary history with a pinch of irreverent salt--Boston Globe." Irreverent and salt should have told me all I needed to know.
I have re-learned my lesson for the next while.
Despite the 2-star rating, the group biography is not a complete waste of time and effort. What I was most hoping for was to be found in the book: A little more info on Thoreau as I have just read Walden and more info on L M Alcott as i have just Walden. It was just a little more information and just enough to answer my questions/fill in gaps.
So why the 2-star rating? What I appreciated was not enough for of the text, just a small part. And the big reason: Susan Cheever gets in front of her topic, editorializing with a sharp tongue. I should have known. On the cover, in small print, I read "Literary history with a pinch of irreverent salt--Boston Globe." Irreverent and salt should have told me all I needed to know.
I have re-learned my lesson for the next while.
March 13, 2016
My Five Question Review
Share a one sentence synopsis, please?
The title, American Bloomsbury; Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Works sums it up in a more organized, sensational, and interesting way than the book itself.
What did you like?
I have had a soft spot for the transcendentalists since I was a teenager, but I can’t say that I ever looked into Margaret Fuller. She was a really interesting character - a feminist before there was feminism. She was intelligent, respected by her (primarily male) peers, and envied by their wives. She bucked the puritanical mores of her era, became a foreign correspondent for the Tribune, unapologetically got knocked up, and then maybe (or maybe not) married the Italian revolutionary baby daddy, only to die, with her young family, off the coast of Fire Island, NY in a shipwreck. Her premature demise sends me into an existential tailspin. If someone as singular and talented as Margaret Fuller can’t make it past 40, what is the point?
Dislike?
I knew I was in trouble early on when I flipped through the pages to look at the collection of photos. Mixed in with portraits of Alcott(s), Emerson, et al. was a poorly framed shot of the author in front of Orchard House. It just didn’t fit, but really set the tone for an assortment of random snippets of the author’s life that were clumsily interspersed among the chapters. (So maybe, did fit. Hrmpf.) LIke the one about the time the author went to Fire Island at 3:30am on July 19, the anniversary date/time of Margaret Fuller’s death. Who cares. And does anyone need to know about the three times the author went to the Plymouth Hospital and the reasons why (fishhook accident, nail accident, corneal flash burn)? Of course not (so joke's on you, review reader). Not only were these anecdotes distracting, they did nothing positive for the narrative.
In addition to the annoyance of the SC putting herself in the book, the method of storytelling was disjointed and repetitive. I am not sure how, but repetition made things confusing rather than solidifying facts in my brain. Maybe because sometimes the 'facts' changed ever so slightly. For example Fuller had a lover/husband/whatever. Pick one, please. There were also a number of strange little side trips, like the whole John Brown thing. I get how abolitionism relates to the transcendentalists, but why spend so much time on this one ancillary topic. Perhaps the extras wouldn’t have been so bad if the organization of the book weren’t quite so messy.
Lastly, where was the exciting stuff that was promised on the front cover? Maybe Concord was a hotbed of raw emotion, but letters and recorded interactions present more like very innocent schoolyard crushes. That’s fine, it’s just not what was touted.
Why this book?
I saw it on display in a little bookshop in Salem, MA (right before taking a trip out to Walden Pond, I might add. Brag.) The title made ye olde Concord sound exciting. I hoped it would be full of fun facts, secrets, and #victoriandrama. Alas, no.
Did anything stick?
Margaret Fuller was one impressive lady. Additionally, it happens quite often that I’ll read a book that just isn’t very good (it’s all subjective, I know) and then am surprised to read in the bio that the author is a writing professor and/or award winner. In this case, I’ll grant that SC’s more personal writings might be better, but I also wonder how far having the last name like 'Cheever' can get you. Hey! Don't give me that look. It's a cynical world we live in. Lastly, I think it's time to revisit Walden.
BONUS: Any cool literary crossovers? Uh, yeah. On June 17, 1825, Margaret Fuller attended the ceremony at which the American Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette (he was French) laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument. I just read and reviewed Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, which, incidentally, is a great example of how an author can successfully insert herself into her book.
Share a one sentence synopsis, please?
The title, American Bloomsbury; Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Works sums it up in a more organized, sensational, and interesting way than the book itself.
What did you like?
I have had a soft spot for the transcendentalists since I was a teenager, but I can’t say that I ever looked into Margaret Fuller. She was a really interesting character - a feminist before there was feminism. She was intelligent, respected by her (primarily male) peers, and envied by their wives. She bucked the puritanical mores of her era, became a foreign correspondent for the Tribune, unapologetically got knocked up, and then maybe (or maybe not) married the Italian revolutionary baby daddy, only to die, with her young family, off the coast of Fire Island, NY in a shipwreck. Her premature demise sends me into an existential tailspin. If someone as singular and talented as Margaret Fuller can’t make it past 40, what is the point?
Dislike?
I knew I was in trouble early on when I flipped through the pages to look at the collection of photos. Mixed in with portraits of Alcott(s), Emerson, et al. was a poorly framed shot of the author in front of Orchard House. It just didn’t fit, but really set the tone for an assortment of random snippets of the author’s life that were clumsily interspersed among the chapters. (So maybe, did fit. Hrmpf.) LIke the one about the time the author went to Fire Island at 3:30am on July 19, the anniversary date/time of Margaret Fuller’s death. Who cares. And does anyone need to know about the three times the author went to the Plymouth Hospital and the reasons why (fishhook accident, nail accident, corneal flash burn)? Of course not (so joke's on you, review reader). Not only were these anecdotes distracting, they did nothing positive for the narrative.
In addition to the annoyance of the SC putting herself in the book, the method of storytelling was disjointed and repetitive. I am not sure how, but repetition made things confusing rather than solidifying facts in my brain. Maybe because sometimes the 'facts' changed ever so slightly. For example Fuller had a lover/husband/whatever. Pick one, please. There were also a number of strange little side trips, like the whole John Brown thing. I get how abolitionism relates to the transcendentalists, but why spend so much time on this one ancillary topic. Perhaps the extras wouldn’t have been so bad if the organization of the book weren’t quite so messy.
Lastly, where was the exciting stuff that was promised on the front cover? Maybe Concord was a hotbed of raw emotion, but letters and recorded interactions present more like very innocent schoolyard crushes. That’s fine, it’s just not what was touted.
Why this book?
I saw it on display in a little bookshop in Salem, MA (right before taking a trip out to Walden Pond, I might add. Brag.) The title made ye olde Concord sound exciting. I hoped it would be full of fun facts, secrets, and #victoriandrama. Alas, no.
Did anything stick?
Margaret Fuller was one impressive lady. Additionally, it happens quite often that I’ll read a book that just isn’t very good (it’s all subjective, I know) and then am surprised to read in the bio that the author is a writing professor and/or award winner. In this case, I’ll grant that SC’s more personal writings might be better, but I also wonder how far having the last name like 'Cheever' can get you. Hey! Don't give me that look. It's a cynical world we live in. Lastly, I think it's time to revisit Walden.
BONUS: Any cool literary crossovers? Uh, yeah. On June 17, 1825, Margaret Fuller attended the ceremony at which the American Revolutionary War hero Marquis de Lafayette (he was French) laid the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill Monument. I just read and reviewed Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States, which, incidentally, is a great example of how an author can successfully insert herself into her book.
Read
December 7, 2020I am SO grateful when editors publish literary criticism/biography in audio format. I also appreciate the challenge of trying to do in situ type literary criticism with children in tow and love the passion project-- writing out of one's own personal romance with a subject. The sort of large project linking the characters about whom SO MUCH has been written is desirable --deeply so!--but one has to I think reckon more precisely with each figure before doing the linking. One especially wanted more nuance in the treatment of the Transcendentalist support for John Brown--her take seemed to rely overmuch on the 1930s biography of Brown by Robert Penn Warren, which was weird.
April 19, 2017
I have virtually no interest in poetry, but it fascinates me that so many famous early American poets & novelists were contemporaries and acquaintances if not friends. Recently, I've been looking for books that impart these shared histories. American Bloomsbury was my first book delving into this topic.
American Bloomsbury covered what I'd call the liberal faction of mid-19th century authors. Several were Transcendentalists and all pushed social boundaries in some form or fashion. The author focused mainly on the Emersons, Alcotts, Thoreaus, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller.
While the biographies were informative, the writing was distracting. The author constantly jumped back and forth through the different lives. She would start paragraphs with pronouns and take most of a page to finally list the subject she was referencing. (Hawthorne and his companion trailed through Concord. They passed the manse. He relished his time with the learned friend...a page later...Hawthorne loved spending time with Margaret Fuller.) Additionally, the author seemed in love with her own flowery, garrulous style. It left me wondering what had happened to her editor.
I'm sorry to give American Bloomsbury such a low review as the topic is interesting. However, the writing was just too disjointed to allow the reader to enjoy its reading.
American Bloomsbury covered what I'd call the liberal faction of mid-19th century authors. Several were Transcendentalists and all pushed social boundaries in some form or fashion. The author focused mainly on the Emersons, Alcotts, Thoreaus, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Margaret Fuller.
While the biographies were informative, the writing was distracting. The author constantly jumped back and forth through the different lives. She would start paragraphs with pronouns and take most of a page to finally list the subject she was referencing. (Hawthorne and his companion trailed through Concord. They passed the manse. He relished his time with the learned friend...a page later...Hawthorne loved spending time with Margaret Fuller.) Additionally, the author seemed in love with her own flowery, garrulous style. It left me wondering what had happened to her editor.
I'm sorry to give American Bloomsbury such a low review as the topic is interesting. However, the writing was just too disjointed to allow the reader to enjoy its reading.
August 13, 2016
Unlike some reviewers I didn't mind the disjunctive narrative, since Cheever explained at the outset her reasons for that approach. And I can't complain about her unscholarly approach, nor her tiring interest in the Concord love affairs, nor the superficiality of her portraits - because I knew Cheever wasn't an academic and it was my choice to read this when I might have been reading Emerson among the Eccentrics or Philip Gura's book on the transcendentalists. But ... when Cheever discusses the Civil War and abolitionism her account seems so biased and inaccurate and out-of-date that I couldn't abide it. Cheever chides abolitionists and the Concord thinkers for their "unpractical" emotional responses to human bondage and their inability to be "political." Without questioning it she regurgitated the old idea that the war was really only about states' rights and not about slavery (she could barely write the word slavery, in fact). But there is so much interesting scholarship that reassess all this - call it revisionist but the standard view needed the revisioning. Disappointing that she didn't offer a more enlightened and nuanced portrait of this American moment and movement.
January 31, 2018
Sloppy, salacious, and superficial.
July 16, 2008
Entertaining read on Concord, Mass during the 1840s and 50s. The town was essentially a genius garden cultivated by the money and sweat of Ralph Waldo Emerson. After his first wife (and love) Ellen died young, Emerson inherited a small fortune and used it to buy up properties in Concord and lure New England's most promising minds.
One by one the freeloaders showed up and sucked Emerson dry: first Bronson Alcott and his family, then Thoreau, then Hawthorne and the rest. Margaret Fuller also stopped in intermittently to disrupt the domestic peace of both Emerson and Hawthorne.
In a sense, Fuller is the most mysterious and interesting person in the book. A woman with a rambling propensity, a sharp wit, and a seductive streak, Fuller helped forge both the women's suffrage and abolitionist movements in America before becoming the NY Times' first foreign correspondent in Europe. There, in Rome, she married an Italian revolutionary and got pregnant.
After much deliberation, she and her husband and child boarded a rickety ship bound for the states. The ship was weighted down with a hull-full of stone blocks and, after a harrowing journey during which her baby almost died, the ship foundered a mere hundred yards from the New England shore. In the melee that followed, Fuller gave her child to one of the young shiphands, thinking that he, if anybody, could make it ashore. He and the baby drowned before her eyes. Fuller and her husband suffered the same fate shortly thereafter. After hearing the news, Emerson sent Thoreau to the beach near the site of the wreck to search for bodies and remnants. None were found.
Apparently, Fuller is the inspiration for Hester Prynne in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and also a few of his other hardy heroines.
Another great anecdote from the book, one that has undoubtedly been chronicled in other works, recounts an encounter between Thoreau and Emerson. Thoreau goes to jail for his civil disobedience (refusing to pay taxes to a slave-sanctioning government). Emerson comes to bail him out.
"What are you doing in there?" Emerson asks upon seeing his disciple behind bars.
"What are you doing out there?" replies Thoreau.
Classic!
One by one the freeloaders showed up and sucked Emerson dry: first Bronson Alcott and his family, then Thoreau, then Hawthorne and the rest. Margaret Fuller also stopped in intermittently to disrupt the domestic peace of both Emerson and Hawthorne.
In a sense, Fuller is the most mysterious and interesting person in the book. A woman with a rambling propensity, a sharp wit, and a seductive streak, Fuller helped forge both the women's suffrage and abolitionist movements in America before becoming the NY Times' first foreign correspondent in Europe. There, in Rome, she married an Italian revolutionary and got pregnant.
After much deliberation, she and her husband and child boarded a rickety ship bound for the states. The ship was weighted down with a hull-full of stone blocks and, after a harrowing journey during which her baby almost died, the ship foundered a mere hundred yards from the New England shore. In the melee that followed, Fuller gave her child to one of the young shiphands, thinking that he, if anybody, could make it ashore. He and the baby drowned before her eyes. Fuller and her husband suffered the same fate shortly thereafter. After hearing the news, Emerson sent Thoreau to the beach near the site of the wreck to search for bodies and remnants. None were found.
Apparently, Fuller is the inspiration for Hester Prynne in Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter and also a few of his other hardy heroines.
Another great anecdote from the book, one that has undoubtedly been chronicled in other works, recounts an encounter between Thoreau and Emerson. Thoreau goes to jail for his civil disobedience (refusing to pay taxes to a slave-sanctioning government). Emerson comes to bail him out.
"What are you doing in there?" Emerson asks upon seeing his disciple behind bars.
"What are you doing out there?" replies Thoreau.
Classic!
July 7, 2025
In American Bloomsbury, author Susan Cheever explores the interconnected lives of five literary giants: Lousia May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller, who all lived and worked in Concord, Massachusetts during the mid-19th century. Cheever paints a vivid portrait of their overlapping relationships, romantic entanglements, and great ideas that helped shape American literature and philosophy. The book seeks to answer the question, why did this small town foster such genius?
I randomly found Henry David Thoreau’s famous work, Walden, in a library when I was young and loved it so much that in 2011, I drove from Ohio to Concord to visit the famous pond. I was amazed to learn that so many other famous authors lived, and revolutionary war history had happened, in Concord as well. Now that I’ll be visiting Concord again this fall, this book seemed like a great way to get acquainted once again with the town and its most famous folk.
Reading this, one finds oneself transported back in time, and then time slows and stops altogether. One moment you’re drifting in a canoe down a river with Thoreau and listening for the animal sounds he’s pointing out to you, and the next, you’re writing Little Women with Louisa May Alcott, etc. Reading this envelopes you continually in a peaceful, sort of calming feeling. The author does a great job of bringing these people in this small town, at that particular time, to life. It made me nostalgic for a place I didn’t grow up in.
The chapters are short and feel easy to get through. I listened to the audiobook version and never changed the listening speed to a faster one which is always a good sign. Each main character gets what is essentially a short biography of their life, especially with how it mingled with the other characters in Concord. The only reason I took off a star from the rating is because there were just a couple of moments where the history focused on a single person for what felt like slightly too long - mostly Hawthorne. But the book overall felt like the perfect length.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. It was also fascinating to read about Emerson essentially paving the way (through finances and also through his influence on getting them to Concord) for this community of geniuses to spring up in the way that it did. It reminded me of reading about the history of Florence in Italy where you had these rich benefactors who championed and financed art, and that allowed some of the greatest art the world has ever known to thrive.
A good read if you’re into the books these authors wrote and especially if you’re interested in how one small town gave rise to all their collective genius.
I randomly found Henry David Thoreau’s famous work, Walden, in a library when I was young and loved it so much that in 2011, I drove from Ohio to Concord to visit the famous pond. I was amazed to learn that so many other famous authors lived, and revolutionary war history had happened, in Concord as well. Now that I’ll be visiting Concord again this fall, this book seemed like a great way to get acquainted once again with the town and its most famous folk.
Reading this, one finds oneself transported back in time, and then time slows and stops altogether. One moment you’re drifting in a canoe down a river with Thoreau and listening for the animal sounds he’s pointing out to you, and the next, you’re writing Little Women with Louisa May Alcott, etc. Reading this envelopes you continually in a peaceful, sort of calming feeling. The author does a great job of bringing these people in this small town, at that particular time, to life. It made me nostalgic for a place I didn’t grow up in.
The chapters are short and feel easy to get through. I listened to the audiobook version and never changed the listening speed to a faster one which is always a good sign. Each main character gets what is essentially a short biography of their life, especially with how it mingled with the other characters in Concord. The only reason I took off a star from the rating is because there were just a couple of moments where the history focused on a single person for what felt like slightly too long - mostly Hawthorne. But the book overall felt like the perfect length.
I was surprised how much I enjoyed this book. It was also fascinating to read about Emerson essentially paving the way (through finances and also through his influence on getting them to Concord) for this community of geniuses to spring up in the way that it did. It reminded me of reading about the history of Florence in Italy where you had these rich benefactors who championed and financed art, and that allowed some of the greatest art the world has ever known to thrive.
A good read if you’re into the books these authors wrote and especially if you’re interested in how one small town gave rise to all their collective genius.
December 6, 2024
Second reading in November 2024:
This time I still enjoyed the content but I begin to see and understand why some readers are frustrated with the (lack of) organization. There were several times when I had to read a passage several times and I still remained confused (and sometimes thought there was a mistake left unedited. It could definitely have benefited from more editing).
I was a little surprised by the lack of sources mentioned or footnotes. There were some sweeping conclusions and assumptions made without reference.
It felt gossipy not scholarly - but then again, there’s a place for that! Lol
I think it’s a fun way to BEGIN learning about the first significant American literary figures (maybe a good way to get a young student interested?). Read some original of their works, then read this… then go back to their work (I bet it will be more interesting the second time!) and then go find some other more scholarly and better organized authors who could help you follow up on who or what you’re most interested in.
I did learn some things via this book, and I did still come away most thankful for and most impressed by Louisa May Alcott. That’s who I would like to follow up on! I’d love to visit Orchard House one day!
———————————————
This was one of my favorite reads of the year! I learned so much, but the book was never dry. Cheever kept me turning the pages as if I were reading a novel. I honestly didn't want the book to end because I enjoyed each "visit" with these quirky, intelligent, frustrating, creative people. Cheever made them come to life for me, giving flesh and bone to icons (without sanctifying them or vilifying them).
My very favorite chapter was about Louisa May Alcott's writing Little Women (one of my favorite books of all time). It was heartbreaking - and made me love and admire her even more. I may have to follow up with Cheever's Alcott biography. :)
I enjoyed the organization of the book, but I noticed some readers complained about the way it goes backwards and forwards. I did not think it was hard to follow or understand; I actually thought that this structure added to the interest. Each chapter focused on one of the main "characters:" Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller (with a little Melville thrown in, too). But within that person's chapter of course many others are mentioned. Often the chapter will not only focus on one writer but on one particular aspect of that writer's life (a relationship, a situation, an illness, marriage, or a death...). It was a brilliant way to braid several distinct timelines into one without separating them. I think that helped me to see each one of them as more rounded and "fleshed out." The main theme here is the community, after all. You can find stories in textbooks or online about each of these people but learning how they lived in community gives those well-known stories a better context that makes them feel fresh and relatable instead of ancient and flat.
This is not a scholarly book, and I'm sure there are mountains of other sources, but it is certainly enough if you are interested and curious - and it is engaging enough to be enjoyable. I think I will enjoy the original texts much more now, as a result of reading this book.
As I read, I thought about how quintessentially AMERICAN it felt, and how true that is of the Transcendentalists themselves and that movement, that place, and that era combined (both positively and negatively). It was a fun read over the Thanksgiving break. :)
This time I still enjoyed the content but I begin to see and understand why some readers are frustrated with the (lack of) organization. There were several times when I had to read a passage several times and I still remained confused (and sometimes thought there was a mistake left unedited. It could definitely have benefited from more editing).
I was a little surprised by the lack of sources mentioned or footnotes. There were some sweeping conclusions and assumptions made without reference.
It felt gossipy not scholarly - but then again, there’s a place for that! Lol
I think it’s a fun way to BEGIN learning about the first significant American literary figures (maybe a good way to get a young student interested?). Read some original of their works, then read this… then go back to their work (I bet it will be more interesting the second time!) and then go find some other more scholarly and better organized authors who could help you follow up on who or what you’re most interested in.
I did learn some things via this book, and I did still come away most thankful for and most impressed by Louisa May Alcott. That’s who I would like to follow up on! I’d love to visit Orchard House one day!
———————————————
This was one of my favorite reads of the year! I learned so much, but the book was never dry. Cheever kept me turning the pages as if I were reading a novel. I honestly didn't want the book to end because I enjoyed each "visit" with these quirky, intelligent, frustrating, creative people. Cheever made them come to life for me, giving flesh and bone to icons (without sanctifying them or vilifying them).
My very favorite chapter was about Louisa May Alcott's writing Little Women (one of my favorite books of all time). It was heartbreaking - and made me love and admire her even more. I may have to follow up with Cheever's Alcott biography. :)
I enjoyed the organization of the book, but I noticed some readers complained about the way it goes backwards and forwards. I did not think it was hard to follow or understand; I actually thought that this structure added to the interest. Each chapter focused on one of the main "characters:" Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller (with a little Melville thrown in, too). But within that person's chapter of course many others are mentioned. Often the chapter will not only focus on one writer but on one particular aspect of that writer's life (a relationship, a situation, an illness, marriage, or a death...). It was a brilliant way to braid several distinct timelines into one without separating them. I think that helped me to see each one of them as more rounded and "fleshed out." The main theme here is the community, after all. You can find stories in textbooks or online about each of these people but learning how they lived in community gives those well-known stories a better context that makes them feel fresh and relatable instead of ancient and flat.
This is not a scholarly book, and I'm sure there are mountains of other sources, but it is certainly enough if you are interested and curious - and it is engaging enough to be enjoyable. I think I will enjoy the original texts much more now, as a result of reading this book.
As I read, I thought about how quintessentially AMERICAN it felt, and how true that is of the Transcendentalists themselves and that movement, that place, and that era combined (both positively and negatively). It was a fun read over the Thanksgiving break. :)
April 22, 2008
I really wanted to like this book, but would've just settled for being able to tolerate it long enough to get through it. I did learn some about these literary greats, but about halfway through got so annoyed with the repetition and jumbled narrative that I just couldn't take it anymore. The author would focus on one character and then in the next paragraph switch to someone/something completely different with no transition whatsoever, leaving the impression that she simply transcribed her notes about anecdotes she liked with no thought to narrative continuity, analysis, etc. Sloppy and annoying.
May 28, 2014
Not awful, but not great either. Other reviews critical of Cheever for being factually inaccurate in places gives me pause, but I don't have the knowledge to comment further. However, I would have liked this book to have been less repetitive and grapple with the issues more deeply. Instead, it was basically "crit fic," weaving a gossip-heavy narrative based on over-zealously interpreting parts of their writings as biography. Still, I did learn more about the Transcendental movement's principal participants and the book was short enough to read casually on a visit to Concord over the long weekend.
October 20, 2022
A dear friend recommended it and since I grew up near Concord and have visited Walden Pond several times, I thought I'd enjoy the book.
It was not very well written and I really didn't care about the author's personal experiences or biases. I really wonder how much research she actually did -it seems as if some of the statements she made are based on hearsay or her own opinions.
There was a lot of back and forth and repetition - it was in need of some serious editing.
Frankly, I think if Susan Cheever weren't the daughter of John Cheever, this never would have been published.
It was not very well written and I really didn't care about the author's personal experiences or biases. I really wonder how much research she actually did -it seems as if some of the statements she made are based on hearsay or her own opinions.
There was a lot of back and forth and repetition - it was in need of some serious editing.
Frankly, I think if Susan Cheever weren't the daughter of John Cheever, this never would have been published.
January 1, 2016
One of my favorite books of this year. More to come.
September 30, 2024
Four stars for the content, but it drops to three because of a significant struggle with organization.
Cheever documents the lives, loves, and losses of the writers who lived in Concord in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s--Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Hawthorne, and Alcott, with appearances by Melville, James, Dickinson, Holmes, Longfellow, Mann, Beecher, Whitman, and Poe. Emerson (with his late wife's money) founded the community and paid the way for his friends and disciples to live and write there. Many, though not all, were Transcendentalists, the original hippies who were rebelling against their Puritan heritage, seeking wisdom and fulfillment in nature and their own feelings. Transcendentalism "consumed, shattered, and destroyed its adherents" as they desperately tried to create a utopia.
Unfortunately, despite the fascinating material, Cheever's book suffers from a distinct lack of logical organization. She hops back and forth in time and back and forth between historical figures in ways that don't generally flow well.
Still, a worthwhile read.
Cheever documents the lives, loves, and losses of the writers who lived in Concord in the 1840s, 50s, and 60s--Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Hawthorne, and Alcott, with appearances by Melville, James, Dickinson, Holmes, Longfellow, Mann, Beecher, Whitman, and Poe. Emerson (with his late wife's money) founded the community and paid the way for his friends and disciples to live and write there. Many, though not all, were Transcendentalists, the original hippies who were rebelling against their Puritan heritage, seeking wisdom and fulfillment in nature and their own feelings. Transcendentalism "consumed, shattered, and destroyed its adherents" as they desperately tried to create a utopia.
Unfortunately, despite the fascinating material, Cheever's book suffers from a distinct lack of logical organization. She hops back and forth in time and back and forth between historical figures in ways that don't generally flow well.
Still, a worthwhile read.
February 27, 2025
Most nonfiction books don’t read like novels, but this one did. In my opinion, that is a huge compliment, because I prefer fiction. American Bloomsbury truly brought the setting of Concord, Massachusetts and the characters of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Louisa May Alcott, and their loved ones to life in a way that makes me feel as though I know them. From these pages, I have gathered many anecdotes that will make teaching my survey course in American literature so much more delicious than it already is. Thank you, Susan Cheever! I highly recommend this book.
May 20, 2012
American Bloomsbury is Susan Cheever's account of the "genius cluster" formed in New England by the Transcendentalists. Assembled and funded largely by the great essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson, the group prominently included: writer Nathaniel Hawthorne, critic and feminist Margaret Fuller, writer and naturalist Henry David Thoreau and the much younger writer Louisa May Alcott who earned her place via her father, the educator and reformer Bronson Alcott. These five authors form the biographical nexus of Cheever's view of mid-nineteenth century literary life in the village of Concord, Massachusetts.
The secondary subjects, events and settings are a rich and fascinating mix as well. As you read famous figures from literature and politics make frequent appearances: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Peabody Sisters, John Brown, President Franklin Pierce, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the list could go on. The diverse panorama includes: slavery, abolition, the Underground Railroad and the Civil War; the 2nd Italian War of Independence; shipwrecks; love triangles; drug addiction and premature deaths.
The narrative is fairly nimble with a straightforward prose style that gives way periodically to moody and often elegiac passages describing the natural settings that abound throughout the story, such as Walden Pond. The unusual structure of the book is mostly successful; focusing in different sections on each writer, the collective story of their relationships develops in a layered way revealing multiple connections in their lives and works. However, the approach to the structure also seems lazy at times and is often annoyingly repetitive; young or careless readers should bear this in mind as it could be confusing. My biggest complaint was the odd authorial expositions that pepper the book, like when we got to hear about how she couldn't find parking, ice cream or a bathroom in modern Concord and her bratty teenage kids refused to get out of the car to tour the Old Manse. Who cares about that?
The profiles of each subject are interesting and Cheever's frankly affectionate analysis of the various personalities still manages to seem balanced. Of necessity in such a short account (the actual text is a mere 200 pages) the stories are brief and at times the transitions seemed choppy but it is a decent primer on this literary scene and would make a good introduction for someone unfamiliar with these writers. For those, like myself, who have some acquaintance with the writers this book is a nice appetizer to a full length bio or to reading or re-reading some of the legendary works that came from their pens.
The secondary subjects, events and settings are a rich and fascinating mix as well. As you read famous figures from literature and politics make frequent appearances: Herman Melville, Walt Whitman, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, Oliver Wendell Holmes, The Peabody Sisters, John Brown, President Franklin Pierce, Giuseppe Garibaldi, the list could go on. The diverse panorama includes: slavery, abolition, the Underground Railroad and the Civil War; the 2nd Italian War of Independence; shipwrecks; love triangles; drug addiction and premature deaths.
The narrative is fairly nimble with a straightforward prose style that gives way periodically to moody and often elegiac passages describing the natural settings that abound throughout the story, such as Walden Pond. The unusual structure of the book is mostly successful; focusing in different sections on each writer, the collective story of their relationships develops in a layered way revealing multiple connections in their lives and works. However, the approach to the structure also seems lazy at times and is often annoyingly repetitive; young or careless readers should bear this in mind as it could be confusing. My biggest complaint was the odd authorial expositions that pepper the book, like when we got to hear about how she couldn't find parking, ice cream or a bathroom in modern Concord and her bratty teenage kids refused to get out of the car to tour the Old Manse. Who cares about that?
The profiles of each subject are interesting and Cheever's frankly affectionate analysis of the various personalities still manages to seem balanced. Of necessity in such a short account (the actual text is a mere 200 pages) the stories are brief and at times the transitions seemed choppy but it is a decent primer on this literary scene and would make a good introduction for someone unfamiliar with these writers. For those, like myself, who have some acquaintance with the writers this book is a nice appetizer to a full length bio or to reading or re-reading some of the legendary works that came from their pens.
November 11, 2016
I've been so distraught about the election results that I haven't been reading the newspaper and have been mostly staying off social media. The bonus is that I've therefore had more time to read books. I finished this one in a couple of days.
I've always been interested in the Concord group of writers. We tend to romanticize them, I think: the quiet, semi-rural, small-town life in a young country, the intellectual companionship and the great American writing that resulted: Walden, Little Women, The Scarlet Letter.
But life in the mid-19th century was hard. Most of the group would have been destitute if not for the generosity of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He wanted to built a community of progressive intellectuals in Concord, and he succeeded, but he had to fund many of his companions, sometimes for years at a time.
Cheever also reveals the utter incompetence of the medical profession in the 19th century. Several of the women in the community, including Louisa May Alcott, suffered from mercury poisoning - mercury was a commonly used "cure" for several ailments at the time - and opium addiction from the resulting pain.
She portrays her characters with all their warts. They were great writers and thinkers, but also human beings with eccentricities and romantic jealousies and some crackpot theories. Especially interesting to me was Cheever's portrayal of Emerson and Louisa May Alcott as they only really adults in the group, the ones who actually made money and supported the rest so they could indulge their little quirks and eccentricities. Without that indulgence we would not have some of the masterpieces of 19th-century American writing.
Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/
I've always been interested in the Concord group of writers. We tend to romanticize them, I think: the quiet, semi-rural, small-town life in a young country, the intellectual companionship and the great American writing that resulted: Walden, Little Women, The Scarlet Letter.
But life in the mid-19th century was hard. Most of the group would have been destitute if not for the generosity of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He wanted to built a community of progressive intellectuals in Concord, and he succeeded, but he had to fund many of his companions, sometimes for years at a time.
Cheever also reveals the utter incompetence of the medical profession in the 19th century. Several of the women in the community, including Louisa May Alcott, suffered from mercury poisoning - mercury was a commonly used "cure" for several ailments at the time - and opium addiction from the resulting pain.
She portrays her characters with all their warts. They were great writers and thinkers, but also human beings with eccentricities and romantic jealousies and some crackpot theories. Especially interesting to me was Cheever's portrayal of Emerson and Louisa May Alcott as they only really adults in the group, the ones who actually made money and supported the rest so they could indulge their little quirks and eccentricities. Without that indulgence we would not have some of the masterpieces of 19th-century American writing.
Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/
February 10, 2009
One of my favorite places in Concord, Massachusetts. I love the old town cemetery with its slate stones. I also enjoy Sleepy Hollow Cemetery where Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and the Alcotts are buried. I was touched that a visitor had left a bouquet at Louisa May's grave.
I had read about Margaret Fuller before; however, I didn't know what a tart she was. If I was Lidian Emerson or Sophia Hawthorne, I wouldn't like Margaret Fuller either, and I wouldn’t let her stay in my house. I’m so glad I live in the present day. Both Lidian and Sophia were supposed to be so grateful to be married that they had to overlook their husband’s mental, and perhaps physical, infidelity with Ms. Fuller.
Ms. Fuller’s story reminds my of E. M. Forster novel "Where Angels Fear to Tread." In that story a widow travels to Italy after her husband's death and finds love with an Italian youth. She dies in childbirth, and her former husband’s English relations try to kidnap the baby who ends up dying when a carriage overturns. It probably has nothing to do with the other; however, the story of Margaret Fuller, her Italian husband and baby drowning in the Atlantic just in sight of the United States shore.
This was a wonderful book because Cheever put her modern thoughts into it while sticking to the story. Cheever also added a sexual element. Whoever thought that "Little Women" had such a radical foundation?
I also found it interesting that Louisa May Alcott in reality went to war while her father Bronson stayed home. What an awful man!
I had read about Margaret Fuller before; however, I didn't know what a tart she was. If I was Lidian Emerson or Sophia Hawthorne, I wouldn't like Margaret Fuller either, and I wouldn’t let her stay in my house. I’m so glad I live in the present day. Both Lidian and Sophia were supposed to be so grateful to be married that they had to overlook their husband’s mental, and perhaps physical, infidelity with Ms. Fuller.
Ms. Fuller’s story reminds my of E. M. Forster novel "Where Angels Fear to Tread." In that story a widow travels to Italy after her husband's death and finds love with an Italian youth. She dies in childbirth, and her former husband’s English relations try to kidnap the baby who ends up dying when a carriage overturns. It probably has nothing to do with the other; however, the story of Margaret Fuller, her Italian husband and baby drowning in the Atlantic just in sight of the United States shore.
This was a wonderful book because Cheever put her modern thoughts into it while sticking to the story. Cheever also added a sexual element. Whoever thought that "Little Women" had such a radical foundation?
I also found it interesting that Louisa May Alcott in reality went to war while her father Bronson stayed home. What an awful man!
May 17, 2009
Oh how I enjoyed this book! I knew bits and pieces about Alcott, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Thoreau, but it was so interesting to read about them on a more "personal" level. I was not at all familiar with Margaret Fuller, so I was fascinated to learn what an important woman she was, particularly for the literary types of the nineteenth century.
The book is divided into sections, and each character has a chapter related to them within the section. Sometimes you are seeing a situation from the point of view of several of the individuals, which is interesting since they are all there at the same time, so you don't need to remember to follow-up later. (Because I am lazy about following-up ...)
I had no idea how Emerson was so much a part of creating the intellectual group that lived in Concord, Massachusetts, and he must have been truly committed to the whole idea, when you read in this book what things he experienced as a result of loans to his literary friends.
When I was in college, I had the opportunity to visit Concord during a visit to my cousin's in Boston. We toured the Alcott House, but now I really want to return and have a "closer" look at the whole town!
One of my favorite passages is from the beginning, where they describe the Alcott family's arrival to Concord. It quotes Louisa May's journal as listing the vices she wants to overcome: "idleness, willfulness, impudence, pride, and love of cats>" !!!
The book is divided into sections, and each character has a chapter related to them within the section. Sometimes you are seeing a situation from the point of view of several of the individuals, which is interesting since they are all there at the same time, so you don't need to remember to follow-up later. (Because I am lazy about following-up ...)
I had no idea how Emerson was so much a part of creating the intellectual group that lived in Concord, Massachusetts, and he must have been truly committed to the whole idea, when you read in this book what things he experienced as a result of loans to his literary friends.
When I was in college, I had the opportunity to visit Concord during a visit to my cousin's in Boston. We toured the Alcott House, but now I really want to return and have a "closer" look at the whole town!
One of my favorite passages is from the beginning, where they describe the Alcott family's arrival to Concord. It quotes Louisa May's journal as listing the vices she wants to overcome: "idleness, willfulness, impudence, pride, and love of cats>" !!!
January 18, 2013
You feel smarter after a tour this juicy little piece by Susan Cheever. Susan Cheever can really write too, although sometimes she interjects modern day jargon and her modern life into her scholarly tidbits. (Those parts of the book makes it lose it's momentum and tone.) Cheever's setting is Concord, Mass., before the Civil War. Her cast of characters include Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoreau, Branson Alcott, Louisa May's father, Hawthorne, Melville and Margaret Fuller. Wives of the big men are also included, as they change their names to reflect a more worldly outlook and some of them move back and forth between the famous Brook Farm. John Brown, the militaristic anit-slavery "nut" is friends to this illustrious set of people and we learn who Hester Prynne may have been modeled upon. The lives and triangulated loves of many of the fine minds of the U.S. are outlined and explored, as well as their houses, their strolls in the woods, and their floundering literary careers. Emerson ended up with Alzheimer's disease and Louisa May Alcott had mercury poisoning and an addiction to opium. Lives criss-crossed with Whitman and Martin Van Buren, Alfred Lord Tennyson and Zachary Taylor. Dickens was writing across the Pond. It was a time for us to salivate upon in the here here and now.
March 5, 2019
Although this book has been cited as having inaccuracies I thoroughly enjoyed it. I have a love for Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson and there transcendental writings and this book by Susan Cheever was a brief wonderfully written introduction for me into their lives and especially focused on their interaction with others of prominence during that time such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Louise May Alcott, Margaret Fuller and others. Some might say that they were all eccentric individuals from which they were able to access their creative talent. Their insight and influence has been enormous although they were not without human fallibility. Their publications are considered to be classics by todays standards and the question begs to be asked what was it about this area of Concord in New England during the eighteen hundreds that made it one of the most influential places and times in the history of North America producing such wonderful writers. How was it that so many gifted people arose to prominence in this place at that time. This book explores some of the dynamics that existed between them and their families and as well between neighbors and in the country and world at large.
November 24, 2009
This book is full of fascinating information:
I read that Nathaniel Hawthorne greatly influenced Herman Melville's approach to Moby Dick.
Margaret Fuller bore an illegitimate child, then drowned (I bet many back in Boston thought it served her right).
However, I do wonder if Cheever accepted Geraldine Brooks' fiction about Bronson Alcott too readily: is there any documentation to support Cheever's assertions about Alcott's sexual experiences in the South when he was a peddler?
Although Cheever's tone was gossipy rather than scholarly and several people found inaccuracies (and blamed her for sloppy research), I enjoyed this very much.
I read that Nathaniel Hawthorne greatly influenced Herman Melville's approach to Moby Dick.
Margaret Fuller bore an illegitimate child, then drowned (I bet many back in Boston thought it served her right).
However, I do wonder if Cheever accepted Geraldine Brooks' fiction about Bronson Alcott too readily: is there any documentation to support Cheever's assertions about Alcott's sexual experiences in the South when he was a peddler?
Although Cheever's tone was gossipy rather than scholarly and several people found inaccuracies (and blamed her for sloppy research), I enjoyed this very much.
September 27, 2012
Fascinating book -- and a quick read! Quirky true tales of the transcendentalist writers -- I never that Emerson purchased the land that Thoreau built his Walden Pond cabin on, and I never realized that Thoreau met Walt Whitman and Edgar Allan Poe -- all these amazing writers who were writing at around the same time. I loved the short, focused chapters in this book, which give time to each of the writers mentioned in the title. I was amazed at what Louisa May Alcott went through (Civil War nurse briefly, treated by doctor with calomel, which gave her mercury poisoning). Highly recommend this book to anyone interested in american literature, history, biography!
August 17, 2015
A light, easy, quick read - fun for summertime, but not the book you'll want to rely on for serious scholarship. The tone gets a little breathless and gossipy at times, there isn't enough primary source material included (though the photographs are nice), and the way the author inserted little asides about herself and her family was unnecessary and distracting. The subjects themselves, though - oh, they are rich material, and it's impossible to write a dull book about them. I wish I'd known more about Margaret Fuller before picking this up and am somewhat ashamed about it. Time to remedy the situation with more reading.
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