Among the Isles of Shoals

by Celia Thaxter

Celia Thaxter was already a popular poet when she began to publish the essays of Among the Isles of Shoals in the Atlantic Monthly in 1869; they were an immediate sensation. Charles Dickens called Thaxter's essays "admirable" and Horace Greeley declared, "The best prose writing I have seen for a long time is Mrs. Thaxter's 'Isles of Shoals' in the Atlantic. Her pen-pictures are wonderfully well-done."Published as a book in 1873, Among the Isles of Shoals remained equally popular, printed not only in hardcover but also in a fifty-cent guidebook edition which was sold in railway stations. Now generally considered to be Thaxter's masterpiece, Among the Isles of Shoals is available once again in this new edition.Thaxter herself was raised on the Isles of Shoals, a group of nine small, rocky islands off the coast of New Hampshire, and she lived there off and on for much of her life. This lyrical volume seamlessly blends natural history, oral tradition, and personal observation to create a work that one critic says feels "somehow distilled from the islands themselves."The bleak landscape of the Isles of Shoals has changed little since the time that Thaxter wrote this tribute, but as the Hartford Courant noted upon its original publication, "whether the traveler goes to these isles or not, if he has this little volume in his pocket, wherever he is he will have a most charming companion."

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Nature, History

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1873

About the author

Celia Laighton Thaxter was an American writer of poetry and stories. Thaxter grew up in the Isles of Shoals, first on White Island, where her father, Thomas Laighton, was a lighthouse keeper, and then on Smuttynose and Appledore Islands.

Her poems first appeared in The Atlantic Monthly and she became one of America's favorite authors in the late 19th century. Among her best-known poems are The Burgomaster Gull, Landlocked, Milking, The Great White Owl, The Kingfisher, and especially The Sandpiper.

Reviews

[Karen Witzler]

Thaxter's 1873 look at general history and life upon the islands off Maine's coast where she later made her famous garden: An Island Garden, had it turn into an artist colony and most famously be painted over and over by Childe Hassam: Childe Hassam: An Island Garden Revisited and made observations concerning the birds to Bradford Torrey in By This Wing: Letters by Celia Thaxter to Bradford Torrey about Birds at the Isles of Shoals, 1888 to 1984

I have developed a bit of an obsession: alas, I am afraid of boats and water.

[Marta E C R]

I have spent multiple weekends and weeks at conferences on Star Island. This year I became interested in Celia Thaxter because I visited Appledore (previously Hog) Island for the first time, where Thaxter had lived a significant portion of her adult life. She had also spent a portion of her childhood on White Island, where her father was the lighthouse keeper. Therefore her knowledge of the Isles of Shoals is broad, wide, and long. In this book, she describes the sights, sounds and smells, as well as the flora and fauna, of these islands in a way that makes it clear she loved them very much. She talks of shipwrecks; describes the villagers of Gosport including quotes from town meetings; writes about storms and the flowers and birds of the islands in great detail. The book ends with some well-written ghost stories which had me riveted. But before those stories, she spent a number of pages writing about what it was like to live there from February through August, with all the seasonal changes therein. Here are a couple quotes from that seasonal section which especially caught my interest: one February a nightingale flew into the house and from there into the canary’s cage voluntarily, where it stayed “singing like a voice from heaven all winter.”
“A precious stone set in the silver sea” (May)
“The world is at high tide of delight” (July)
My only criticism of this book is that there are no chapters and there is rarely a break in the writing (only two by my count), which makes it a bit difficult to read in anything but one sitting, but that really is only a minor criticism in the scheme of things. All in all, it is a splendid book and I recommend it highly to anyone interested in the Isles of Shoals.

[Kathleen Valentine]

Originally written as a series of newspaper articles the text appears as one long narrative for some reason which is a bit disconcerting at first but once you get used to it you find endless treasures both elegant and hilarious. Thaxter grew up on Star Island and is known both as an artist and for her fabulous flower gardens. She lived most of her life on the Isles of Shoals, those jewel like islands that glitter on the horizon nine miles off the coast of New Hampshire. Some years back I took a ferry out to Star Island and then across to Appledore Island but have never been to the rest. There are nine of them altogether. Nine made into eight by a connecting breakwater or seven when the tide is low and land connects two more.

The islands are home to the Star Island Hotel which is now a convention center owned by the Unitarian/Universalism Church (whose earliest known cemetery is my backyard) but which was once a popular resort managed by Celia Laighton Thaxter's father.

Her book is wonderful. She opens by describing the islands, both their geography and their history and then goes on to cover every aspect of life there. She rails quite furiously at how modern technology is ruining life there and how the newly built homes of settlers are an eyesore and destroy the charm of the ancient cottages. Since she wrote this in 1873 it is quite amusing to imagine how she would she her beloved islands today. Her love of the islands is on every page.

She amuses the reader with descriptions of the people, many of whom have lived their all their lives never stepping foot on the mainland. She describes their peculiar speech patterns, the odd, rolling gate that many of the men have developed from spending most of their time aboard ships. The discusses their habit of giving one another nicknames and odd local colloquialisms, rails against the drunkenness that has blighted the islands, and praises the women who seem to keep busy when the men are drinking. “Blessed be the man who invented knitting,” she writes, “It is the most charming and picturesque of quiet occupations, leaving the knitter free to read aloud or talk or think while steadily, surely beneath the flying fingers the comfortable stocking grows.”

In discussing mating rituals she recounts the native custom when a young man is besotted by a young lady he hides behind a tree and chucks rocks at her as she passes. If she turns to look at him that means she is interested. She tells of violinists who think that possessing a violin is all that is needed to make music and thus squawk out the most ear-splitting noise and give it pretentious, high-faulting names. In one charming passage she rhapsodizes about the sight of fishermen “Saxon-bearded, broad-shouldered, deep-chested, and bronzed with shade on shade of ruddy brown” and goes on to say “the neutral blues and grays of the salt-water make perfect backgrounds for the pictures these men are continually showing one in their life aboard the boats. Nothing can be more satisfactory.” Celia! You naughty girl!

But amid the ghost stories, stories of wrecked ships, lost treasures, and amazing rescues are her descriptions of nature and there she is at her very best. She writes of storms and squalls, seals and snowy owls, songbirds and butterflies, the brilliant colors of island vegetation, and the beauties of the islands through the months from bleakest winter to sparkling summer.

This is a beautiful book – one that I'll keep and read again when I need a break from the mainland and the 21st century. It is a lovely little vacation in another era among the Isles of Shoals.

[halanmoozle (Lilienne!)]

This book contains some very beautiful bursts of prose and I am very partial to the images that Thaxter extols; they are similar to that sort of craggy, barren, harsh ocean beauty, or the beauty of a land that persevera without trees, that I grew up revering.

If you’re willing to aimlessly consume this book, it’s not such a hard read. It’s somewhat mesmerizing. But it’s certainly not entertaining, and reading it quickly—as I did, for class—is a chore. I imagine that this work better rewards wading through it.

[Humphrey]

This text is frequently referred to as regionalism, but it's really closer to natural history or even travel writing (think Margaret Fuller's Summer on the Lakes): there are no characters are plot. Thaxter's lovingly-detailed chronicle of the seasons, biology, geology, and memories of the Shoals has much more in common with Mary Hunter Austin than Mary Murfree or Sarah Orne Jewett.

[alison]

stream of consciousness, so hard to follow at times. bonus stars for distant familial connection !

[T Crockett]

There were anecdotes and snippets that really came to life and made me eager to read more. The only problem was that there were even more sections of straight description (each plant and rock type) and many, many quotes from texts written in the 1600s. I couldn't get into it.

[Jo Donoghue]

Celia Thaxter knows how to put words to feelings effortlessly. Lovely read along with learning of the perils and joys of the Isles of Shoals. History knowledge gained through her story telling. Nicely done.

[Betsy Panayides]

Preparing for trip to Isles of Shoals Star Island in August.

[Susan Dunker]

Lovely homage to the Isles is Shoals. Vibrantly descriptive of flora and fauna on this Isles. Some ghost stories and sea wreck stories thrown in too.

[Brainorgan]

Among the Isles of Shoals by Celia Thaxter (1973)