By the Same Author My Name Is Bill As Good as I Could Be Note Found in a Bottle A Woman’s Life Treetops Elizabeth Cole Doctors and Women Home Before Dark The Cage A Handsome Man Looking for Work SIMON & SCHUSTER Rockefeller Center 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 Copyright © 2006 by Susan Cheever All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc. Designed by Dana Sloan Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cheever, Susan. American Bloomsbury : Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau : their lives, their loves, their work / Susan Cheever. p. cm. Includes bibliographic references and index. 1. Authors, American—Homes and haunts—Massachusetts—Concord. 2. American literature—Massachusetts—Concord—History and criticism. 3. Authors, American—19th century—Biography. 4. Concord (Mass.)— Intellectual life—19th century. 5. Concord (Mass.)—Biography. I. Title. PS255.C6C48 2006 810.9’97444—dc22 2006045015 ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-9870-4 ISBN-10: 0-7432-9870-5 Visit us on the World Wide Web: http://www.SimonSays.com Contents A Note to the Reader Preface Part One 1 Concord, Massachusetts 2 The Alcotts Arrive for the First Time 3 Louisa, Girl Interrupted 4 Louisa in Love…Henry David Thoreau 5 Sic Vita 6 Two Loves 7 Ellen Sewall 8 Money 9 Emerson Pays for Everything 10 Two Deaths 11 The Curse of Salem 12 Hawthorne Emerges 13 The Execution 14 Another Triangle Part Two 15 Bronson Alcott, Peddler Turned Pedant 16 Fruitlands 17 Sex 18 Thoreau Goes to New York City 19 Wall of Fire 20 Walden Pond 21 Margaret Fuller, the Sexy Muse 22 Rome 23 The Margaret Ghost 24 Hawthorne Leaves Salem Forever 25 Stockbridge 26 Melville 27 The Railroad 28 Community 29 Without Margaret Part Three 30 Louisa May Alcott Returns 31 Louisa in Boston 32 Concord Again 33 Walden, Walden 34 Thoreau Now 35 Leaving Walden 36 The Birth and Death of Margaret Fuller 37 Shipwreck 38 The Hawthornes’ Return to Concord 39 President Frank 40 Bayonets and Bullets 41 Local Martyr Part Four 42 The Death of Thoreau 43 Louisa in Washington, D.C. 44 Return and Illness 45 Hawthorne Leaves Concord 46 Death 47 Little Women 48 Emerson and the Fire Concord, Today Chronology Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index