Home, Sweet Home

Not every author is forced to eke out his living in a hovel somewhere.

FlavorWire has published photos of the mansions owned by fifteen (always or eventually affluent) authors: Edith Wharton, Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Stephen King, Vladimir Nabokov, Robert Graves, Kurt Vonnegut, Victor Hugo, Anais Nin, Evelyn Waught, Eudora Welty, Gore Vidal, J.K. Rowling, William Shakespeare, and Frederick Douglass.

Found via The New Yorker’s Book Bench

Atlanta’s “Authors Grove”

“On the patch of land in Atlanta’s Piedmont Park along Piedmont Road between its 13th and 14th street entrances stands something very rare in American cities: a living memorial for writers.

Established during World War I by local journalist and poet Lollie Belle Wylie, dozens of trees have been planted over the years, each dedicated by an Atlanta civic organization to the memory of famous – and some not-so-famous – authors.

The first seedling, planted on December 10, 1918, was dedicated to Jacques Futrelle, a promising young Atlanta journalist who perished on the Titanic in 1912.

The Atlanta Writer’s Club, which Lollie Belle presided over for many years and which coordinated the tree plantings, had some interesting ideas about who should be memorialized. Near the tree dedicated to Mr. Shakespeare you’ll find one dedicated to a Mr. Charles Hubner, and another to one Father Ryan O’Henry. Among the trees dedicated to Jack London, John Masefield, Edgar Allan Poe, and James Whitcomb Riley, you’ll find others memorializing favorite sons Joel Chandler Harris, Henry Grady, Sidney Lanier – and another for J.Y. Holland, who once edited the Ladies Home Journal.

A further oddity is the tree dedicated to Mother Goose, who may not have written anything herself but, as we know, had a lot of good stories told about her.

Only two female writers are honored in the Authors Grove: Louisa Alcott and – you guessed it – Lollie Belle Wylie herself. (Ms. Wylie, among her other accomplishments, wrote the music for Georgia’s first official state song.) Lollie Belle’s name was inscribed among those of the Great Ones on a bronze and granite monument during a rededication ceremony in 1961.”

Quoted from The Booklover’s Guide to Atlanta by Cal Gough and Celeste Tibbets (Point of Reference, 1992). Source cited: “Authors Grove: A Few Facts…” by Augusta Wylie King. Typed manuscript (Ms. #387F/Folder 2 of 2) dated March 17, 1944. Manuscript Collection, Atlanta Historical Society Library.

Visiting Writers’ Houses: A Contrarian View

We’ve posted to this site links to plenty o’ photos of writers’ houses (like the photo above of one of Robert Frost’s homes in New England). And “literary tourism” is likely to disappear anytime soon.

But at least one writer feels that the impulse to visit the homes of famous writers is (to put it mildly) wrongheaded.

Her screed was published by the blog maintained by the  New York Review of Books; read it – and don’t miss the readers’ comments, as they, too, make interesting observations.

Found via Baby Got Books

 

British Literary Pilgrimage Sites

The UK-based Telegraph has posted a slide show of photos and a few details about the tourist-accessible homes of fifteen famous British authors: Rudyard Kipling, William Wordsworth, Agatha Christie, Samuel Johnson, D.H. Lawrence, Charles Dickens, the Bronte sisters, Beatrix Potter, Vita Sackville-West, Charles Lamb, Virginia Woolf, Robert Burns, and Sir Walter Scott…and (allegedly) William Shakespeare.

Found via The New Yorker’s Book Bench

More Photos of Writers’ Houses

 

For readers who’ve wondered about the everyday surroundings of some of their favorite writers, we’ve posted links to photos of various writers’ studies/workrooms/living rooms before, but here are ten more such photos, posted yesterday at Flavorwire.

Found via Shelf Awareness

Norwich: Another Destination for Book Lovers?

Many a booklover has longed to visit Hay-on-Wye,  the Welsh village filled with independently-owned second-hand bookshops and host to a world-renowned literary festival.

But a mere two hours’ distance from London – and once England’s second-most important city – Norwich is, according to a recent story in the New York Times, also worthy of a bibliophile’s visit. 

Read the story.

‘Writers’ Houses’ Website

Debuting only yesterday, one of the Internet’s newest websites is devoted to posting information (and drawings or photographs of) “all writers’ houses open to the public in the world.” An ambitious goal, as the website’s author acknowleges that there are almost 300 such houses in France alone.

Several photos of Southern U.S. authors are posted, and one of the first drawings posted to the site is Andalusia, Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia home.

The site will be browsable by author’s name and geographically.

Take a look-see.

Planning a Literary Vacation

Booklovers are notorious for routinely working into their vacation plans pilgrimages to local literary sites – local bookstores, if nothing else.

If you’re one of these people, you might want to buy – or borrow from your local public library – a guidebook published last year to literary sites worldwide.

The guide is entitled Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West, by Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon (National Geographic Society, 2008). 

According to a review in the June 11, 2008 travel section of USA Today’s website, the guidebook ” lists author houses and museums; festivals and tours; literary lodgings, bars and cafes; and places where ‘the pages of literature come to life.’ Those include Charles Dickens’ London, Victor Hugo’s Paris, Franz Kafka’s Prague, Louisa May Alcott’s Concord, Mass., and John Steinbeck’s Monterey and Salinas, Calif.” Over 500 sites are included.

A Museum for Mr. Poe

This year is the bicentennial of Edgar Allan Poe’s birth, and several  new books, exhibits, and conferences have marked the occasion.

Earlier this month, the New York Times ran a story about the museum in Richmond, Virginia devoted to All Things Poe.

Should you feel the inclination to read or re-read some of Poe’s work, you’ll find plenty of them at any public library.

Contributed by Ponce staffer Leticia Stinson

World’s Most Beautiful Bookstores?

Although we’ve already posted a link to one set of photographs of one person’s list of the world’s most gorgeous bookstores, here’s another set of someone else’s list.

Found at The Book Bench, a blog maintained by The New Yorker