Literary New England

Library Journal

For readers interested in literary trivia, this guide to author haunts in six New England states is a treasure. Did you know Cummington, Massachusetts, was the home of William Cullen Bryant; that Willa Cather often took two rooms during the summer at the Shattuck Inn down the hill from the village of Jaffrey Center, New Hampshire; and that Edgar Allan Poe visited Providence, Rhode Island, in pursuit of the poet Sarah Helen Whitman? Corbett, a former poet-in-residence and writing teacher, mentions hundreds of authors (none currently living) who spent an hour or a lifetime in New England towns and cities. Arranged by town within each state, paragraphs, and occasionally pages, describe the significance of the place to the classic author. There are no maps. Entertaining but not essential.-- Janine Reid, Jefferson Cty. P.L., Lakewood, Col.