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American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work
A brilliant, controversial, and fascinating biography of those who were, in the mid-nineteenth century, the center of American thought and literature.Concord, Massachusetts, 1849. At various times, three houses on the same road were home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry and John Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May, Nathanial Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller. Amo...more
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Published
January 15th 2007
by Tantor Media Inc
(first published 2006)
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What a wonderful read. If only, if only, if only they had used this in my 11th grade honors English course! This gives such a wonderful insight and understanding into the literature they wrote, the times they lived in, and the relationships they held with one another.
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...more
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Bridget
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Those fond of 19th century literature
Shelves:
2009-reads
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 s...more
The book is divided into sections, and each character has a chapter related to them within the section. Sometimes you are seeing a s...more
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 Fu...more
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 Fu...more
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 secti...more
I cannot believe an editor would have allowed this book to go to print. Cheever divides this story into four sections. In each secti...more
I found this book a fast-read with an interesting topic and inventive format. My high hopes in the beginning fell a bit
short by the end, as the idea of revisiting the same event
from different people's perspectives became more repetitive
than illuminating. I was okay with Cheever injecting her own
reactions and views into the mix; her voice was clear and
her enthusiasm for her topic contagious. However, again, by
the end, some of the belaboring of topics such as Al...more
short by the end, as the idea of revisiting the same event
from different people's perspectives became more repetitive
than illuminating. I was okay with Cheever injecting her own
reactions and views into the mix; her voice was clear and
her enthusiasm for her topic contagious. However, again, by
the end, some of the belaboring of topics such as Al...more
I found this time period and place very interesting. The people involved and how they influenced each other created quite an amazing community. It was interesting to me to realize that this was taking place simultaneous to the events detailed in Rough Stone Rolling, which I am also reading. The narrator was too intrusive for me, and I disliked her tendency to suggest more than she could prove. The insinuated love affairs were a bit melodramatic compared with any actual evidence. Looking at t...more
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 not...more
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 gl...more
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 gl...more
This is a readable, rather than scholarly, book that feels almost gossipy in tone and content in places. Yet, I can't stop turning the pages to see what Cheever has to say about this select small group of fascinating people who lived at an extraordinary time in early nineteenth century Concord, Massachusetts. The benefit of this book is that Cheever has turned these dry names from the world of American Studies into an interconnected web of memorable human beings. My caution would be for reader...more
I'm a fan of Thoreau, Hawthorn, and Emerson, and got a lot of exposure to Lousia May Alcott's work as a child, so American Bloomsbury was the sort of book that ties a lot of threads together for me. I'd never really understood just how closely entwined their lives were (or how closely Margaret Fuller's was), or put the timeline of their lives into history properly. I was surprised to discover the way their lives in 1850s Concord connected with the history of my state via John Brown, and by a s...more
If you're a fan of Victorian era American literature and transcendental philosophy and soap operas, Susan Cheever's American Bloomsbury might be the book for you. Unfortunately for me, I was just interested in those first two things, so Cheever's book kind of fell flat for me.
I will admit, it is a pretty informative text, and it helped me fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge about (and recent obsession with) Louisa May Alcott. It's useful in that it tells more about the relatio...more
I will admit, it is a pretty informative text, and it helped me fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge about (and recent obsession with) Louisa May Alcott. It's useful in that it tells more about the relatio...more
Victoria Weinstein
rated it
·
review of another edition
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
no one!
Shelves:
non-fiction
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.
American Bloomsbury, by susan Cheever A.
Downloaded from audible.com.
Publisher’s note:
Here is a brilliant, controversial, and fascinating biography of those who were, in the mid-19th century, at the center of American thought and literature.
It was an eclectic cast of characters. At various times in Concord, Massachusetts, three houses on the same road were home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry
and John Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May, Nathanial Hawth...more
Downloaded from audible.com.
Publisher’s note:
Here is a brilliant, controversial, and fascinating biography of those who were, in the mid-19th century, at the center of American thought and literature.
It was an eclectic cast of characters. At various times in Concord, Massachusetts, three houses on the same road were home to Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry
and John Thoreau, Bronson Alcott and his daughter Louisa May, Nathanial Hawth...more
In her preface to this book, the author cited F O Matthiesen's "bold statement that all of American literature had been written between 1850 and 1855." How remarkable it is to contemplate that the likes of Emerson, Fuller, Thoreau, Alcott, Hawthorne, and Melville - very much the backbone of American literature in the mid-19th century - all resided or visited and spent time with one another in the small town of Concord, Massachusetts.
While I found the book a lovely read on a d...more
While I found the book a lovely read on a d...more
I have really mixed feelings about this book. While it has an interesting and ambitious goal, I think the result falls short of its promise. It took dedication to trudge through the first fifty pages, and the fact that the book was only 200 pages long was one of the only things that convinced me to keep going. Ultimately, I was glad that I did, but the beginning chapters are very repetitious with jarring transitions from one writer's story to the next. However, as the continuity continued and wr...more
I really enjoyed this book. It is a lively, irreverent, and easy read, an introduction to five Transcendentalists of Concord during the 1850s who were some of the greatest minds of our history, and who established a major literary movement. It brings the times, the achievements, and the characters to life while telling their interesting and engaging stories, their relationships and influence on each other, and their strengths and weaknesses. It brings them down from their lofty and dulling pe...more
Not uninteresting, but confirms my prejudices against most of these writers as seriously unhappy people whose ideas ranged from odd to dangerous. The book itself, in an effort to weave all these lives together, was choppy and hard to follow. She chose to organize her material somewhat thematically--although even the chapter themes were somewhat obscure at times--rather than chronologically. I do NOT recommend this book.
This is an easy read and really pretty interesting....who knew if there hadn't have been a Ralph Waldo Emerson to support all these people financially, we may well have missed out on some of the greatest literature. Clearly, these people were able to do thier thing, due to Emerson's providing them with living spaces, and cold hard cash. The book tied in nicely with just having read the fictitious Harvard Yard by William Martin...in so much as Harvard was initially religious based...and some of t...more
I loved this book so much! It is simply an amazing collective biography. I learned so much in this book about Emerson, Alcott, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, Fuller etc.
One of the most interesting things I learned is that Thoreau was in no way "self reliant" on Waldon pond. His sugar dadddy, Emerson, paid for that land that he lived on and Emerson also made sure that Thoreau had the proper provisions.
Emerson's first wife died leaving him a small fortune. It...more
One of the most interesting things I learned is that Thoreau was in no way "self reliant" on Waldon pond. His sugar dadddy, Emerson, paid for that land that he lived on and Emerson also made sure that Thoreau had the proper provisions.
Emerson's first wife died leaving him a small fortune. It...more
The word "Bloomsbury" conjures a time and place peopled by artistic visionaries whose creativity changed the perception and practice of art, literature, philosophy, and criticism. I think of it as a wheel that radiated outward from Virginia Woolf to Lytton Strachey, Carrington, Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Lady Ottoline, Vita Sackville-West, Katherine Mansfield, Ethyl Smith - clearly, not all Bloomsberries, but artists who were reaching out and breaking barriers everywhere.
The...more
The...more
If you are looking for a scholarly or in-depth study of what was happening in Concord, Massachusetts in the 1830s, 40s and 50s, this is not really that book. If you are looking for a fun and informative quick read, it is. Sometimes I was bugged by Cheever's insertion of herself into the narrative (for example, the bemused but hip mother taking her children to modern-day Concord) and her out-of-place colloquialisms ("Hawthorne had come to the point where he needed to get out of Dodge"...more
The extent to which Susan Cheever bases her analysis on pure guesswork is up for debate. While she includes an extensive bibliography and footnotes many of her claims, several reviewers note errors of fact and the unlikely nature of some of the extrapolations. The slim size of the volume and the depth of the lives it examines necessarily lead to occasional elisions and terseness. Cheever does, however, successfully evoke the reader's sympathy and interest in both the authors and their books, eve
...more
I resisted reading this book for a long time. However, it was a book group selection and I finally gave in. Learning about the lives of the Emersons, Alcotts, Hawthornes, Margaret Fuller and H.D. Thoreau was interesting. I had read about Margaret Fuller, but never really knew much about her. The book seems to be well researched. People in the book group objected to the many grammatical errors. I agreed with some that the book would have been stronger if the author had not interjected hers...more
A glimpse into the personal lives of Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Alcott and Fuller. I've read writings by the first four but really knew nothing about them. Cheever presents the world of Concord, MA in the mid-1800's. What a time and place to live! I especially liked learning about Thoreau. Now that I know more about Louisa May Alcott and her strange father, I want to reread Little Women. If you are interested in American literature, I think you will find this book interesting. Three and ...more
The people written about in this book were fascinating. Aside from the usual you get in undergrad American lit courses, the only one I really knew anything about was Margaret Fuller. So, reading about the people was really interesting. However, the writing was terrible. Cheever continually inserts herself into the narrative in ways that do not add anything to the book; of course, she also inserts many other things that add nothing to the book. And the 1-3 page chapters with cutesy titles we...more
I've had this book in my to-read pile for a year and a half, and after mentioning recently that my mom is never wrong when she gives me books to read--whether she's read them or not--and remembering that this was a birthday gift from her--I moved it to the top of the pile. Dude, it is just WRONG that this book should be as absorbing as it is. It makes me feel like I'm reading fluff. And it's a joy to read a book by someone who thinks Bronson Alcott was as much of a loser as I've always though...more
Liz
rated it
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review of another edition
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review of another edition
Recommends it for:
those interested in transcendentalism or american literary history
Recommended to Liz by:
my fabulous Aunt Janet
Shelves:
biography
This is a really interesting book, though it's been more meaningful to me after visiting Concord and being able to envision places like the Old North Bridge or the Cambridge Turnpike. I've learned a lot about the writers' lives: Emerson and Hawthorne were both enamored with Margaret Fuller, and Fuller, who had a child outside of marriage when she lived in Italy, was the model for Hawthorne's Hester in _The Scarlet Letter_.
And Yeats's poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (I ...more
And Yeats's poem "The Lake Isle of Innisfree" (I ...more
I really, really wanted to like this book. Having grown up in Mass. as an obsessive reader, I got Transcendentalism through my pores and felt as though I knew all these people in a deeply personal way. So I was excited to learn more about them and their intertwined lives.
Thoreau is treated fairly. Alcott is made into a sort of icon with much information and annotation; it's obvious that Cheever loves her as much as I do. Hawthorne is continually villified as some sort of cad and soci...more
Thoreau is treated fairly. Alcott is made into a sort of icon with much information and annotation; it's obvious that Cheever loves her as much as I do. Hawthorne is continually villified as some sort of cad and soci...more
I keep going back and forth between 2 and 3 stars--we need those half stars!!
This book is a good introduction to the Trancendentalists living in Concord during the 1840's. But there's so much I was expecting that wasn't there, and so much that was there that I found questionable. They style was flowery in a way that really turns me off. So mamy descriptions of the apple-blossom scented spring air wafting on the breeze,way too many. And how many times do we have to be told that Emerson ...more
This book is a good introduction to the Trancendentalists living in Concord during the 1840's. But there's so much I was expecting that wasn't there, and so much that was there that I found questionable. They style was flowery in a way that really turns me off. So mamy descriptions of the apple-blossom scented spring air wafting on the breeze,way too many. And how many times do we have to be told that Emerson ...more
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