The Mount, Edith Wharton's mansion
The pilgrimage in search of relics of our favorite writers must necessarily go through USA . Proud of their past, Americans claim their cultural heritage transforming the homes of the authors of its canon into places to visit -economically exploited with greater or lesser success- in which to shine their concept of community. New England or Deep South Writers they left their mark on their homes, where today we go to satisfy an obsession, pay homage to them and even, sometimes, learn new things about them.
ORCHAD HOUSE, THE HOME OF LOUISE MAY ALCOTT
Visiting Orchad House in Concord is doubly exciting for the fan because it's not just the home of the author of “Little Women” (or, no kidding, “Little Men”); comes to be like visit the house of the characters of the novel, a landmark of world youth literature . Her own family, Alcott , was the direct inspiration for Louise to create the Marches: an exemplary father, a loving mother and four daughters who mature, suffer and have fun during the american civil war . Although it is not the childhood home of the writer, who arrived here at the age of twenty, it was in this dark wooden house where she wrote her most famous work, in which good Protestant values, transcendentalism, fights (almost) shine. to death between sisters, hair sold and a Jo March with which generations of readers continue to identify.
Orchard House, the home of Louise May Alcott
MARK TWAIN HOUSE MUSEUM IN HARTFORD
The must-have author in any collection of one-liners was a superstar of her time whose success allowed her to travel, live large, and build herself a magnificent **Victorian home in Hartford**, Connecticut . Her success did not save her from bankruptcy, but until that time came, the mansion housed her eccentricities and was a home in which she comfortably wrote such works as "Tom Sawyer's adventures ”. The financial problems they would take the family Clemens to sell the property and move to europe , but they would always long for the comfort and charm of their dream home. The building deserves to be visited on its own due to its careful decoration and its good state of conservation, but it also houses a wonderful museum on the life of the writer.
THE HOUSES OF ERNEST HEMINGWAY
The myth of alcoholic, womanizer, bearded, cigar smoker and suicidal author is so great that the sites that add to his biography are multitude. In addition to the historic bars in Europe or Cuba that can hang the “Hemingway got drunk here” sign, several buildings in the United States keep his memory. His birthplace in Oak Park , Illinois, tells the story of his family and houses a museum on the life of the writer, that he lived there until he was six years old. Most famous is the house of key West (Key West), in Florida, steeped in memories of his volcanic personality. Here he went fishing, entertaining famous friends, collecting hunting trophies and building an expensive swimming pool. A must: the surroundings today host a considerable population of six-toed cats descended from Snowball , Hemingway's beloved cat who also had this feature.
Arrowhead, the home of Herman Melville
EDWARD GOREY'S ELEPHANT HOUSE
His unmistakable and highly imitated drawings are full of gothic houses and brimming with a dark sense of humor, but to spend the last twenty years of his life he chose a old house in yarmouth port , on Cape Cod, with very little darkness. Today display personal items of the author, exhibitions of his works, and part of his funds are dedicated to different animal care organizations, with which Gorey actively collaborated. Also, although we know that souvenir shops are a popularization and commercialization of cultural products, it is very difficult to resist what it offers.
THE HOMESTEAD, THE HOME OF EMILY DICKINSON
Of all the relevant dwellings in the existence of writers, this one Amherst, Massachusetts , it is of the most significant , fundamentally because the poet barely left here during her adult life. The beautiful family building and the garden that she herself tended (and in which she is buried) evoke the mysterious figure dressed in white that she would end up locking herself in her room of her own free will but was able to become one of the founding poets of American literature. Visiting her home and contemplating her clothes has something sacrilegious about it. break that intimacy that she persecuted so much. In any case, the fascination with her work and the controversial visions of her life continue to shake the vision of the woman and the myth more than a century later.
Jack London's Ranch
JACK LONDON'S RANCH
In fairness, the writer of the great open spaces and the call of the wild does not belong to a house, but to an entire park in California, which is also the testimony of a failure. In the zone of glen ellen she devoted herself to build her one hundred percent American dream of owning a farm economically viable, something she would never achieve. London loved the idea of being a farmer (in fact he was a pioneer of organic farming) or, according to his detractors, he loved the idea of being one but not the daily work that this entailed. On the ground you can visit today the ruin of the “house of the wolf” (the author's dream house that burned down almost as soon as it was built), the museum, the farm's facilities or his tomb. In the simple and cozy main house, the remains of the memories of his journalistic trips waves stays in the Klondike that he would be inspired by the stories of those who are now illustrious wolves, such as "White Fang", "Kazan wolfdog" or "Bari son of Kazan".
THE EXPERIENCES OF HARRIET BEECHER STOWE
This illustrious neighbor of Mark Twain in the nook farm neighborhood (Hartford, Connecticut) belongs to the small group of authors whose works helped change the world. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" is considered a fundamental book in American history not only for its literary values but because it helped to make the country aware of the injustice of slavery and there are even those who consider it an a History of the Civil War . In Cincinnati , Ohio, you can visit the house where Harriet Beecher Stowe lived for a few years. The affluent family home in New England saves furniture, belongings and manuscripts of the author and seeks to be a center of interpretation of her life and her work, always observed with the prism of Yankee optimism that one person can make a difference.
The Mount Mansion Fountain
ARROWHEAD, THE HOME OF HERMAN MELVILLE
The writer had to leave New York and settle on this farm in Berkshire County (Massachusetts), to transform memories of his years as a sailor into the dense and prodigious “Moby Dick”. During the 13 years he spent here with his family, Melville, in addition to his masterpiece, would finish numerous short stories such as "Bartleby the Scrivener," but the economic hardship (that constant in the lives of writers well into the 20th century) forced him to sell his beloved farm to his brother and return to New York to take an office job. The company that manages the house proudly states that the view of Mount Greylock from his desk would inspire Melville to create the white whale . Desk, mountain and inspiration remain practically intact.
THE MOUNT, THE MANSION OF EDITH WHARTON
We leave behind the flirtatious Victorian houses or the cozy country houses: Edith Wharton was very rich and her home in lenox , Massachusetts, a authentic mansion . She belongs to that group. aristocratic authors or practically aristocrats who used irony to perfectly describe their peers of social status, but TheMount is beyond any joke: an expert in decoration and landscaping, Wharton designed the house and her grounds to his liking of her imbuing it with her personality, and she would refer to the place as “my first real home”. today is magnificent house museum get a return on your assets organizing exhibitions, weddings, multiple activities and even encourages rumors that she is delighted to offer "ghost tours".
THE HOUSES OF WALT WHITMAN
Father, founding icon and generator of modern american poetry If we were talking about pilgrimage at the beginning of the text, it is with Walt Whitman that this aspect becomes more evident. The house where he was born Huntington , Long Island, is a interpretive center of his life and work which organizes literary evenings and tributes to the poet. In Camden , New Jersey, at his brother George's house, he would complete "Leaves of Grass" after years of work, and with the money obtained from his unexpected success he would buy his only home, in which he spent the last few years already converted into a universal legend.