
American Bloomsbury
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Narrated by:
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Kate Reading
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By:
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Susan Cheever
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 Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller. Among their friends and neighbors were Henry James, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Edgar Allen Poe, and others - men and women are at the heart of American idealism.
We may think of them as static daguerreotypes, but in fact, these men and women fell desperately in and out of love with each other, edited each other's work, discussed and debated ideas and theories all night long, and walked arm in arm under Concord's great elms - all of which creates a thrilling story.
It was America's equivalent to England's Bloomsbury. American Bloomsbury explores how, exactly, Concord developed into the first American community devoted to literature and original ideas - ideas that, to this day, define our beliefs about environmentalism and conservation, and about the glorious importance of the individual self.
©2006 Susan Cheever (P)2007 Tantor Media Inc.Listeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
"Beguiling....[a] lively and insightful introduction to the personalities and achievements of the men and women who were seminal figures in America's literary renaissance...[Cheever] keenly analyzes the positive and negative ways they influenced one another's ideas and beliefs and the literature that came out of 'this sudden outbreak of genius'." (Publishers Weekly)
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Where the classics came from
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A good overview, but with some problems
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I learned so much!
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Good background and kind of gossipy
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I would recommend this title with some BIG caveats. As many have pointed out, there are several quite glaring factual errors in the book. (Please see the Amazon.com reviews for this title if you'd like more details about this)
The overall tone is light, chatty, even dishy and gossippy, and much more time is spent on the love lives and intrigues among the Hawthornes, Emersons, Thoreau brothers, Alcotts, Margaret Fuller, et al, than their lives of thought and literary output that was so profoundly influential to everything that followed in American culture.
OK, that having been said, I do think Cheever gets right a very superficial overview of the Concord group. It's a decent introduction for the absolute beginner. It's also appreciated that she gives equal weight to the women of the circle (which some other even contemporary books on this subject do not).
I hope the listener will use this selection as an intro in that way, then move on to other more scholarly works (Robert Richardson's bios of Emerson and Thoreau, Geldard's books on the spiritual teachings of Emerson) and then the works of the residents of Concord themselves, an amazing cluster of authors and thinkers.
Decent intro to 1840's Concord
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One discordant note that is struck a couple of times: Cheever often rightly underlines the oppression of women, even within the progressive Transcendentalists; however, in a couple of places she draws parallels to African American slavery, and there is no comparison in the degree of human bondage between the two. Cheever probably did not mean to imply this.
imaginative landscape for history narrative
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A couple specific comments:
The portrayal of Louisa May Alcott is the most compelling part of the book. Cheever has written a biography of Alcott, and I suspect it is worth the read.
The chronological oddnesses mentioned by other reviewers are real. I wish Cheever had found a better way to address the problems of the interconnecting and overlapping lives. It would probably be less of an issue in a paper book.
could be better, but not wasted time
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I don’t doubt the author might have had the replica Thoreau cabin to themselves for a few minutes- but Walden in the Summer is extremely busy and the cabin is steps from the parking lot. It’s not “empty” or “not often visited” in anyway shape or form. It’s not large, and is easy to take in in a minute or two- but thousands upon thousands visit each year.
In another section, it’s said Thoreau could not find a publisher for “A Week on the Merrimack” which is certainly not true. It didn’t sell well, and Thoreau did buy back the remainders- but it was never “self published”. The author seems to know the whole story and how the extra copies lived in Thoreau’s basement so I’m not sure why this easily checked fact was written or made it by an editor.
It’s gossipy in parts- suggesting relationships, crushes, and possible affairs left an right. Perhaps there was a lot of mutual attraction in this small knit group but I wonder how much is factual and how much is speculation.
A good number of factual errors
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American way of thought. I particularly enjoyed how the author could continuously seam together a patchwork quilt of lives and ideas. The characters come alive, and unlike other biographies, notice is paid to the women and, children. I had read this before we listened to the audio, but we also enjoyed the fine reading of the narrator. My husband might have liked more reference to the dialogue with the science developing at Harvard, but agrees this was not in the scope of the book, and as a transcendentlaist scholar himself, he was impressed by the book and cheever’s telling. And sue, if you’re reading this, we were housemates at 87 prospect st!
How a town spawned an American philosophy
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Concord history
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