Field trip, book clubs! Summer offers an opportunity to visit
literary locations. Concord is a big one, home to houses lived in by
“Little Women” author Louisa May Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Boston publisher Daniel Lothrop,
whose wife, Harriet (Margaret Sidney), wrote the “Five Little Peppers”
series.
It’s not as far away as Salem, where the actual House of
Seven Gables is located, or Hartford, Conn., where Mark Twain (Samuel
Clemens) lived and wrote, and Concord has nearby shops and restaurants.
The
Wayside — the first literary site added to the National Park Service —
was first built around 1717 as home to Samuel Whitney, a Revolutionary
war soldier. The Alcotts lived there after moving from communal living
in Harvard. Louisa’s father, Bronson Alcott, was an eccentric who wanted
no part of it (having not recovered from his failed living experiment
at Harvard’s Fruitlands, another neat spot to visit).
They named
the house Hillside. Neighbor and fellow author Ralph Waldo Emerson
helped them find it, even loaning the family some money toward its
purchase; Mrs. Alcott paid the rest. She would later tire of Concord and
move the family toward Boston, selling to Nathaniel Hawthorne, for
$1,500! It was Hawthorne who renamed it the Wayside.
Hawthorne lived there from 1852-1869, writing “The Scarlet Letter,” “House of the Seven Gables” and other fiction.
The
public may visit; the house is part of Minute Man National Historical
Park and located at 455 Lexington Road. These writers tackled issues
familiar to Americans who know their history — the Alcotts sheltered at
least two runaway slaves, becoming part of the Underground Railroad
network. They lived in the house from 1845 to 1852, and this was where
Louisa May Alcott envisioned much of the childhood portrayed in her
book, “Little Women.”
Daniel and Harriet Lothrop and,
subsequently, their daughter Margaret, owned the house between 1883 and
1965. While lesser known, Margaret’s “Little Peppers” series was a huge
hit in the early 1900s. In 1965, it became part of the national park.
More summer club suggestions:
Katherine Howe, “The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs.”
The
author of “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane” returns with the story
of a New England history professor engaged in a race against time to
free her family from a curse. Look for it on shelves now.
Tom Phillips has released “Humans: A Brief History of How We F*cked It all Up.”
The
fall book club discussion will be lively and unquestionably funny after
the group reads this collection of “wish-you-were-there” moments from
history, spanning culture, science, politics and war. It details how
infamous screw-ups in human nature came at just the wrong moment,
entertaining the rest of us for decades. Samples: The Taiwanese general
who stored gunpowder in his palace before a lantern festival, and an
army attacking itself after a little too much alcohol consumption.
Students sweating out history courses might enjoy this book as well.
Nonfiction.
