Books : American Bloomsbury: Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau: Their Lives, Their Loves, Their Work
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by: Susan Cheever
List Price: $15.00Amazon.com's Price: $10.20 You Save: $4.80 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 810.997444
EAN: 9780743264624
ISBN: 0743264622
Label: Simon & Schuster
Manufacturer: Simon & Schuster
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 240
Publication Date: September 18, 2007
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Sales Rank: 30604
Studio: Simon & Schuster
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
The 1850s were heady times in Concord, Massachusetts: in a town where a woman's petticoat drying on an outdoor line was enough to elicit scandal, some of the greatest minds of our nation's history were gathering in three of its wooden houses to establish a major American literary movement. The Transcendentalists, as these thinkers came to be called, challenged the norms of American society with essays, novels, and treatises whose beautifully rendered prose and groundbreaking assertions still resonate with readers today. Though noted contemporary author Susan Cheever stands in awe of the monumental achievements of such writers as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, and Louisa May Alcott, her personal, evocative narrative removes these figures from their dusty pedestals and provides a lively account of their longings, jealousies, and indiscretions. Thus, Cheever reminds us that the passion of Concord's ambitious and temperamental resident geniuses was by no means confined to the page....
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating: - An intriguing imaginative reconstruction of the intersecting lives of transcendentalists in Concord
This book has a lot to recommend it as an introduction to several brilliant individuals whose lives crossed paths in Concord, Massachusetts between about 1840 and 1870. It is an enjoyable, easy read -- with very short chapters that are organized around themes and encounters rather than strict chronology. The book brings these characters to life, reading between the lines of letters, books and journals to capture their unspoken thoughts and feelings for each other. It shows how the lives and thoughts ... Read More
Rating:  - Pleasant, gently informative reading
AMERICAN BLOOMSBURY is a study of the "genius cluster" centered in Concord, Massachusetts, 1835 - 1888, beginning with the arrival of Ralph Waldo Emerson and ending with the death of the last of the neighborhood's classic writers in the neighborhood. With the inheritance from a short-lived first wife from a wealthy family, Emerson largely supported friends like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, the Alcott family and Margaret Fuller as they launched their careers. They shared Transcendentalism ... Read More
Rating:  - What your textbook never told you!
Ms. Cheever makes you want to read...or perhaps reread and understand for the first time...the works of writers who shaped American thought and history.
Rating: - American Bloomsbury is an intimate look at the lives of the nineteenth century New England Transcendalists
Susan Cheever has written a short book on the lives of the famed New England transcendentalists who were in the vanguard of the literary renaissance of nineteenth century America. The book is not profound but makes for good bedtime reading.
The less than 300 page book focuses on the literary geniuses who lived in Concord west of Boston in the mid-nineteenth century:
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson was the father of the transcendentalist movement in America. Emerson (1803-1882) left he Unitarian ... Read More
Rating:  - Engaging, but is it fiction?
I'm still scratching my head over this one. One the surface, its concept is fascinating: some of the greatest thinkers and strongest personalities of the 19th century presented in an engaging narrative format. Even so, it's hard to tell how much of this book is "story" and how much is "fact". Cheevers's attempts at presenting a linear narrative are also not so successful. I think it is this "fiction-like" presentation that confused me... Each scene had me questioning its authenticity or factual accuracy ... Read More
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