Classics Reading Challenge 2010 - Progress...

Well, here we are at the end of February, and I'm doing fairly well with my challenge of reading twenty classics I've never read before from the list. (If you're interested, the list can be found here.)

I've started out with the easy books, but I did throw in extras. For instance, Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne is on the list, House at Pooh Corner is not, but was in the same volume so I read it too. Eeyore is a lot more sarcastic in the books, Kanga and Roo seem to have been additions to Christopher Robin's collection of stuffed toys and don't enter the book until later. Tigger isn't even in the first book. Rabbit and Owl seem based on live animals and are therefore more intelligent than the stuffed animal characters. But Christopher Robin is the most intelligent, taking on the role of a benevolent god in the Hundred Acre Woods. I went there a few years ago, and there are markers where various scenes in the book took place. It's not as impressive as one would hope, but Pooh Stick Bridge (pictured) looks much like the illustration--I wonder if the bridge has been replaced as it looked new.

It was interesting to compare the first book, based on stories Milne told to his son, and the second which was written as a sequel when Christopher Robin had apparently outgrown the stories and was off at school. The introduction and conclusion of House at Pooh Corner had an almost bittersweet quality. I noticed a similar contrast between Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (which I read last year) and Through the Looking Glass, which I finished last week. Alice is rather obnoxious in the first, and more mature and likable in the second. There's much more structure in Looking Glass--it's based on a chess game (as wacky as Wonderland seems, Carroll was a mathematician, and there is a sort of logic to the fantasy world), and it's clear when Alice moves from one square to the next as a pawn. Similarly, Milne's second novel shows more structure, written for a public audience as opposed to a record of oral stories written down for one child. Movie adaptations of both seem to have blended the two books together. The talking flowers and Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, who appear in the Disney film, are from the second book, for instance. As a companion, I read a short biography on Carroll, Lewis Carroll in Wonderland by Stephanie Stoffel, which gave a good overview of his life and a lot of photos. The thing most people know about Carroll is that he liked to photograph children--was in fact one of the most renowned children's photographers of his day--and seemed to have a fondness for spending time with children that was questionable for a single man. It seems his friendship with Alice Liddell, on whom Alice is based, ended abruptly before the book was published. He kept a daily journal, but a niece tore the pages referring to whatever happened between him and the Liddell girls out. One theory is that Alice got to be close to marriagable age and it was no longer appropriate for her to spend time with an unmarried man. There is also a theory that he may have been in love with her and interested in marraige (which wouldn't have been unheard of at the time, despite the age difference), though he was not a suitable suitor due to the class difference (Mrs. Liddell was socially ambitious).

 The third classic on the list I read was the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote. The book is much more liberal than the Audrey Hepburn movie, and more poignant with a very different ending. It reminded me a bit of a modern-day Camille by Dumas fils. (the basis for my favorite opera, La Traviata) in both plot and overall structure. The most notable difference to me when compared to the movie were the frequent, casual references to lesbianism--I can't imagine that being in an Audrey Hepburn movie. the edition I read also contained a few other short stories by Capote which are worth reading because they show his strength for character-driven short stories.

I supposed my conclusion so far on the Classics Challenge is that while reading a work by a classic author is good, reading two or three gives you a better understanding. I know that isn't a very profound observation, as it seems rather obvious. I guess another way to put it is that being widely read doesn't necessarily mean a wide variety of different authors, but rather a deeper understanding of each author. however, I think you do need to read broadly to find the authors you want to read more of, and be open to all types of books. You never know what you might end up liking.

I started the next book on the list, Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, last night.  Though only two chapters in, I think she's another author I'll want to read several books by. Seems the goal of 20 books on that list (which lists one book by each of 150 classic authors) is going to be a bigger challenge than I thought, but a worthwhile one.

Reading Challenge 2010

I was thinking about what to do as my reading challenge next year. Having conquered the 52 books finished in a year, I could do it again, or increase the number, but it would be nice to do something different.
Early this year, there was a quiz circulating on Facebook based on a report by the BBC that claimed most people had only read 8 out of a list of 100 books. While it was a fun quiz, I found it a problematic measure of deep literacy. Some books were doubly listed--both Hamlet and The Complete Works of Shakespeare as well as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and The Chronicles of Narnia appeared, and the respective latter two are really collections of several books. The other issue for me was there was an emphasis on contemporary popular fiction, particularly British fiction. How could Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code make the list when Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Nathaniel Hawthorne didn't? For that matter, why include several works by Austen and Dickens and omit those American authors. Granted, this list was British and no doubt aimed at the general public (hence the inclusion of recent popular works), but I wanted a more comprehensive list.
And so I created my own Literacy Quiz, which I've posted below. I tried to think of classic works of fiction, and include one book for each author. To be a "classic," it has to have stood the test of time, which I set at 50 years. I focused on literary fiction, but also included key works in genre fiction. I also tried to include books from different countries. I used the BBC list in part, but mostly searched lists of top books and recommended reading lists. Because I was only including one work from each author, I had a scoring system to give credit for reading a different book by the same author. In the end I listed 122 books, and left 3 spots to write additional books at the quiz-taker's discretion.
So what I'm thinking is that my goal for 2010 should be to read a certain number of classics. They should primarily be books on the list below, or at least by the authors on the list below. I'm not sure how many. I'm thinking 20, but that would be about a classic every two weeks, and most classics take longer to read. I may also stick with my 52-book total quota--I need my commercial fiction fix, and I want to stay current on contemporary fiction, as well as nonfiction. So perhaps I should start with 10, and if I finish them by June, I'll make it 20. I think this will be a good way for me to keep reading, but emphasize the classics.
I may also include authors or books not on the list. I didn't include plays, which is why Shakespeare isn't included, but there are a few of his plays I haven't read. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller was published in 1961, so it didn't meet the 50-year criteria, but it's very close. I simply didn't think of All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque, and am actually currently reading it. Though I'll likely finish before the end of this year, I'm tempted to count it anyway since I've finished my 2009 challenge, and want to get started on the next one!

The Literacy Quiz

I Scored 207 on the Literacy Quiz!

Below are classic works by over 100 authors. These are books that are generally recognized as having great literary value that have already stood the test of time (i.e. have been in print for about 50 years or more). There are three slots for bonus titles: books by authors you think should be included (feel free to disregard the 50-year rule).

To determine your Literacy Score, use the following rules:
4 points – if you read the book listed
5 points – if you read the book listed and it wasn’t a school assignment
3 points—if you read a different book by the author than the one listed

1. Aesop’s Fables -
2. Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe -
3. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott - 5
4. Winesburg, Ohio – Sherwood Anderson -
5. Foundation – Isaac Asimov -
6. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - 3
7. Go Tell It on the Mountain – James Baldwin -
8. The Black Sheep - Honore De Balzac -
9. The Wizard of Oz – L. Frank Baum - 5
10. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow -
11. The Mandarins - Simone de Beauvoir -
12. Beowulf - 4
13. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte - 4
14. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte -
15. Fahrenheit 451 – Ray Bradbury - 5
16. The Good Earth – Pearl S. Buck -
17. Pilgrim's Progress - John Bunyan -
18. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett - 3
19. Tarzan of the Apes – Edgar Rice Burroughs -
20. Breakfast at Tiffany’s – Truman Capote -
21. The Spy Who Came in from the Cold – John le Carre -
22. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll -
23. My Antonia – Willa Cather -
24. Don Quixote – Miguel de Cervantes - 4
25. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler -
26. The Canterbury Tales – Geoffrey Chaucer - 4
27. The Awakening – Kate Chopin -
28. Murder on the Orient Express – Agatha Christie -
29. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins -
30. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad - 4
31. The Last of the Mohicans – James Fenimore Cooper - 4
32. The Red Badge of Courage – Stephen Crane -
33. The Enormous Room – e. e. cummings -
34. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl - 5
35. Divine Comedy - Dante -
36. Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe -
37. The Man in the High Castle – Philip K. Dick -
38. Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens - 3
39. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky -
40. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle - 3
41. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier -
42. The Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas -
43. Camille – Alexander Dumas fils. - 5
44. Middlemarch - George Eliot -
45. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison -
46. The Sound and the Fury – William Faulkner -
47. Tom Jones - Henry Fielding -
48. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald - 4
49. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert -
50. The Good Soldier – Ford Maddox Ford -
51. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster -
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons -
53. Lord of the Flies - William Golding - 5
54. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame - 4
55. Riders of the Purple Range – Zane Grey -
56. She – H. Rider Haggard - 5
57. The Glass Key – Dashiell Hammett -
58. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy -
59. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne - 4
60. Catch-22 - Joseph Heller -
61. The Old Man and the Sea – Ernest Hemmingway - 4
62. Cabbages and Kings - O. Henry - 5
63. The Odyssey – Homer - 4
64. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo -
65. Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston -
66. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley -
67. Daisy Miller – Henry James -
68. From Here to Eternity – James Jones -
69. Ulysses - James Joyce - 4
70. The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka -
71. Just So Stories – Rudyard Kipling - 5
72. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H. Lawrence -
73. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee - 4
74. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe - CS Lewis - 5
75. Babbitt – Sinclair Lewis - 4
76. The Call of the Wild – Jack London - 5
77. The Naked and the Dead – Norman Mailer -
78. The Magic Mountain – Thomas Mann -
79. Of Human Bondage - W. Somerset Maugham - 3
80. Selected Short Stories - Guy de Maupassant - 5
81. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez -
82. The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers -
83. Moby Dick - Herman Melville -
84. Tales of the South Pacific - James Michener - 3
85. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne -
86. Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell -
87. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery - 5
88. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov -
89. A Good Man Is Hard to Find – Flannery O’Connor -
90. The Scarlet Pimpernel – Baroness Orczy - 5
91. Animal Farm - George Orwell - 5
92. Selected Short Stories - Edgar Allan Poe - 5
93. Atlas Shrugged - Ayn Rand -
94. Clarissa - Samuel Richardson -
95. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger - 4
96. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery -
97. Ivanhoe – Sir Walter Scott -
98. Frankenstein – Mary Shelley - 4
99. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute -
100. The Jungle – Upton Sinclair -
101. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn – Betty Smith -
102. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck - 3
103. Treasure Island – Robert Louis Stevenson -
104. Dracula - Bram Stoker -
105. Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Harriet Beecher Stowe - 4
106. Gulliver’s Travels – Jonathan Swift -
107. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray -
108. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy -
109. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien -
110. Lady Anna - Anthony Trollope - 5
111. Huckleberry Finn – Mark Twain - 3
112. Rabbit, Run – John Updike -
113. The City and the Pillar – Gore Vidal -
114. All the King’s Men - Robert Penn Warren -
115. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh -
116. The Time Machine – H.G. Wells - 5
117. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton - 4
118. Charlotte’s Web - EB White - 4
119. The Picture of Dorian Gray – Oscar Wilde - 3
120. Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder - 4
121. To the Lighthouse – Virginia Woolf -
122. Germinal - Emile Zola -
123. (bonus) Harry Potter series - 5
124. (bonus) The Bluest Eye – Toni Morrison - 5
125. (bonus) The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood –

Don’t forget to change the score to your own in the subject line!

Mission Accomplished--52 Books Read

Well, I'm happy to report I've accomplished my goal of finishing 52 books this year, and with a month to spare!
Of course with a project like this I had to keep a record--to be honest, I wouldn't remember I'd read some books if I didn't write them down, which tells you of the impact of those books. Basically, I just kept a spreadsheet of the book details (title, author, genre, etc.), my personal rating, and maybe a brief note.
As far as my goal of being diverse, I'm reasonably satisfied, though I probably could have read a greater variety of nonfiction categories--I mostly stuck with memoirs, travel, essays, and humor. Another of my earlier goals was to purge my shelves, and I got rid of about half of the books I read that I owned (some were borrowed from the library or friends). Basically, anything that didn't get a 4-star rating or higher went in the canvas bin for donations/used book store trade ins.
Before I get to my favorite books of the year, I should briefly explain my rating system. There are half stars, but obviously those are for books that fall between.
* = repulsive, I actively disliked this book. Nothing got one star because I wouldn't have finished it, and only the books I finished counted.
** = Didn't like, regretted reading it. Only three books got a 2, two of which were slightly obscure 19th century children's *** classics.
= Okay, enjoyable read. Most books got this, which isn't surprising since I focused on books I wanted to read.
**** = Exceptional, I would read it again or recomend it to a friend. I'll note these in a moment.
***** = An all time favorite. None received this. There are only a handful of books I've ever considered a 5.
I should also note that my rating system is entirely subjective, naturally, and vastly skewed according to my personal preferences. I also weigh books in the context of their genres. For instance, a romance novel could get a 4, while Hemingway earned a 3. You can't compare carrots and cupcakes, each have their place and can only be compared to their kind.
So, without further rambling, here, in order of having read them, are the 4-star books of 2009 (a.k.a. those I would recomend):

Lord of Ice by Gaelen Foley (historical romance)
A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins (memoir/travel)
What I Did for Love by Susan Elizabeth Phillips (contemporary romance)
Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott (memoir)
The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsely (personal finance)
The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver (fiction)
Wildlife Preserves by Gary Larson (humor)
The Widow of the South by Robert Hicks (historical fiction)
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (classic/science fiction)
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris (memoir/essays)
Lord of Fire by Gaelen Foley (historical romance)
Finger Lickin' Fifteen by Janet Evanovich (mystery)
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (YA/fantasy)
Searching for Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede (YA/fantasy)
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (memoir/essays)
Signspotting III by Doug Lansky(humor)
The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti (historical fiction)
Bear Portraits by Jill Greenburg (photography)
In Dubious Battle by John Steinbeck (classic/fiction)

I tried to be diverse in my reading. I work on commercial fiction, so I try to keep up on genre fiction (romance, mystery, science fiction, young adult, etc.) I also tried to get in a few classics, and for most it was evident to me why they've lasted.
So now I'll have to think about what adjustments to make for 2010. More books? More diversity? Hmmm....

52 Books a Year

As I've mentioned before, I'm a bookaholic. Back in late 2007 I faced the usual dilemma--I had binged at the bookstore, and had a stack of books and no shelf space to put them. I've learned to occasionally weed out any books I no longer want. However there were no weeds at this point--I'd have to read some before I'd know if I wanted to keep them. The problem has always been that I shop faster than I read. So I decided that I would read as many books as possible. I didn't have to finish if I didn't like it, the goal was to purge the shelves, after all. But this naturally meant that I focused on the books I thought I'd least enjoy. It's not much fun to read that way.
For 2008, I changed the rules. I would see if I could read a book a week for a year. By the end of the year, I'd read 54 books. I was focusing on books I wanted to read more, and I did manage to get rid of about half of them. But I can't honestly say, "I read 54 books," because to me saying you read a book means you finished. And I didn't finish some of them.
So I upped the stakes again for 2009. Again, 52 books in a year is the goal, but I have to finish them. I think I've mentioned this before, but as the year has progressed, I've refined the rules.I have to be diverse, reading fiction and nonfiction, a variety of genres and authors. Audio books, I decided, count. The idea is no longer to purge the shelves (a hopeless goal, I accumulate about three books a week on average). The goal is to be more broadly read.
By summer, I was well ahead of schedule, and then I walked into my local Borders and noticed they'd rearranged the shelves, primarily to move the teen books into the adult part of the store and farther away from children's books. Most prominent was the manga section, which dwarfed the regular teen book section and was in the center of the store. I knew manga was hugely popular with teens--a friend of mine who teaches high school noted it's all kids are reading. All I knew was they were Japanese illustrated novels. So I decided I wanted to understand what the fuss was about and hit the library, where there were two large spinning racks of manga books. I'll save what I've learned about the genre for another post, and focus instead on what it did to my plan. Manga books can be read in about an hour or two, and I was reading about nine a week. I played with different ways of counting them--a full series would count as one, ten mangas would count as one regular book, etc.. after all, they're books, in a different genre, and I finished them, so they should technically count...but that made it too easy. So I decided none of them would count, and now was barely ahead and had to catch up.
So, here it is, second week of November, and I'm at 48 books read (not counting any manga). Things are looking good, but I don't know if the holidays will mean more or less reading time. Still, I'm confident, so when I've finished number 52 I'll post again, and talk about the top books I've read this year. Until then, I better get back to reading!

Literary Destinations in England

I doubt this list is nearly complete, so feel free to comment if you see anything missing. I went to England about ten years ago and visited a few of these sites (which I've starred)--wish I had a digital camera back then, but I guess it gives me an excuse to go back (as if I needed one)! The photos below are the ones I took with my 35mm.


BERKSHIRE
Church Cottage, home of Kenneth Graham – Pangbourne

BUCKINGHAMSHIRE

*John Milton's Cottage - Chalfont St. Giles (pictured)

CUMBRIA
*World of Beatrix Potter- Bowness
*Dove Cottage, home of William Wordsworth - Grasmere (pictured)
*Hill Top, home of Beatrix Potter - Near Sawrey


DORSET
*Thomas Hardy's Cottage - Dorchester
Dorset County Museum, Thomas Hardy - Dorchester

KENT
Charles Dickens' Bleak House Dickens Maritime & Smuggling - Broadstairs (now a private residence, no longer open to the public)
Charles Dickens House Museum - Broadstairs
Geoffrey Chaucer Centre - Canterbury
Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales - Canterbury
Dickens World (Charles Dickens-themed amusement park) – Chatham Maritime
The Royal Victoria and Bull Hotel, haunt of Charles Dickens - Rochester
Charles Dickens Centre - Rochester
Frances Hodgson Burnett's Great Maytham Hall - Rolvenden
Lamb House, home of Henry James - Rye

HAMPSHIRE
*Chawton House, Home of Jane Austen - Alton
William Cobbett, walking trail - Selborne
Charles Dickens Birthplace - Portsmouth

LONDON

*The Charles Dickens House Museum
*Shakespeare's Globe Theater (reconstruction) (pictured)

NOTINGHAMSHIRE
*Sherwood Forest - Edwinstowe

OXFORDSHIRE
Mapledurham House [John Galsworthy, Kenneth Graham & Alexander Pope] - Mapledurham
Alice's Shop, inspiration for Lewis Carrol - Oxford
Thames River, inspiration for Lewis Carrol - Oxford
The Eagle & Child Pub, haunt of C.S. Lewis & J.R.R. Tolkein – Oxford

SOMERSET
*Jane Austen Centre - Bath

EAST SUSSEX

*Bateman's, home of Rudyard Kipling - Burwash (pictured)
*Pooh Corner, inspiration for A.A. Milne - Hartfield
*Ashdown Forest (A.A. Milne's 100 Acre Wood) - Hartfield
Monk's House, retreat of Virginia Woolf - Lewes

WARWICKSHIRE
*Shakespeare's Birthplace - Stratford-Upon-Avon (pictured)
*Anne Hathaway's Cottage (Shakespeare's wife) - Stratford-Upon-Avon
*Hall's Croft (home of Shakespeare's daughter) - Stratford-Upon-Avon
*Mary Arden's House (Shakespeare's mother) - Stratford-Upon-Avon (pictured)
*New Place, Shakespeare's retirement house - Stratford-Upon-Avon


YORKSHIRE
*Bronte Parsonage Museum - Haworth

Literary Destinations in the United States

Several years ago, I got it in my head to start a website (this was before blogging had become mainstream), which I ultimately determined to be more trouble than it was worth. Anyway, part of the site was devoted to literary destinations--primarily homes of famous authors. Visiting these homes combined my passion for literature and travel, and they continue to be favorite destinations of mine. I compiled a list of these locations using travel guides, web browsing, etc. and I thought it was worth posting here as a reference. I've starred the ones I've visited, and included some of my personal photos.
Please feel free to comment if you know of a site that is missing. My goal is to compile the most comprehensive list possible. However, please note that this is a list of sites which are open to the public--this seems obvious, but someone once contributed a photo he'd taken of a current bestselling author's private home, something I do not want to encourage!

UNITED STATES

ALABAMA
*F. Scott & Zelda Fitzgerald Museum - Montgomery, AL (pictured)
Helen Keller Birthplace: Ivy Green - Tuscumbia, AL

ARKANSAS
The [Ernest] Hemingway-Pfeiffer Museum - Piggott, AR

CALIFORNIA
Zane Grey's The Pueblo - Avalon, CA
Robinson Jeffer's Tor House - Carmel, CA
Jack London State Historic Park - Glen Ellen, CA
John Muir National Historic Site - Martinez, CA
Eugene O'Neill's Tao House - Danville, CA
Will Rogers Historic Park - Pacific Palisades, CA
John Steinbeck's Birthplace & Boyhood Home - Salinas, CA
Robert Louis Stevenson House - Monterey, CA
The Silverado Museum: Robert Louis Stevenson memorabilia collection - St. Helena, CA
Mark Twain Cabin - Sonora, CA

CONNECTICUT
Eugene O'Neill's Monte Cristo Cottage - New London, CT
*Harriet Beecher Stowe House & Center - Hartford, CT
*Mark Twain House - Hartford, CT (pictured)
*Noah Webster House - Hartford, CT

FLORIDA
Robert Frost Cottage - Key West, FL
Ernest Hemingway Home & Museum - Key West, FL
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Historic Site - Cross Creek, FL

GEORGIA

*Joel Chandler Harris' The Wren's Nest - Atlanta, GA (pictured)
Uncle Remus Museum - Eatonon, GA
Sidney Lanier Cottage - Macon, GA
*Margaret Mitchell House & Museum - Atlanta, GA

IDAHO
Ezra Pound Birthplace - Hailey, ID

ILLINOIS
Ernest Hemingway Birthplace - Oak Park, IL
Vachel Lindsay Home - Springfield, IL
Edgar Lee Masters Memorial Museum - Petersburg, IL
Carl Sandburg Historic Site - Galesburg, IL

INDIANA
James Whitcomb Riley Birthplace & Childhood Home - Greenfield, IN
*James Whitcomb Riley's Lockerbie Home - Indianapolis, IN
Gene Stratton-Porter's Limberlost - Geneva, IN
Gene Stratton-Porter State Historic Site, Limberlost North - Rome City, IN

LOUISIANA
Kate Chopin House - Cloutierville, LA

MAINE
Sarah Orne Jewett House - South Beswick, ME
Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow House - Portland, ME

MARYLAND
*Edgar Allan Poe House & Museum - Baltimore, MD

MASSACHUSETTS

*William Cullen Bryant Homestead - Cummington, MA
*Louisa May Alcott's Orchard House - Concord, MA
*Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Wayside - Concord, MA
*Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Old Manse - Concord, MA
*Nathaniel Hawthorne's Little Red House - Lenox, MA
*Nathaniel Hawthorne's Birthplace - Salem, MA
*Nathaniel Hawthorne's House of Seven Gables - Salem, MA (pictured)
*Emily Dickinson Homestead - Amherst, MA
*Herman Melville's Arrowhead - Pittsfield, MA
*Henry David Thoreau's Walden Pond - Concord, MA
*Henry Wadsworth-Longfellow National Historic Site - Cambridge, MA
*The Mount, home of Edith Wharton's The Mount - Lenox, MA (pictured)
John Greenleaf Whittier Home - Amesbury, MA
John Greenleaf Whittier Homestead - Haverhill, MA


MINNESOTA
Sinclair Lewis Boyhood Home - Sauk Center, MN
Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum - Walnut Grove, MN

MISSISSIPPI
William Faulkner's Rowan Oak - Oxford, MI
William Johnson House - Natchez, MI

MISSOURI
Eugene Field House - St. Louis, MO
Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum - Hannibal, MO
Laura Ingalls Wilder Home - Mansfield, MO

NEBRASKA
Bess Streeter Aldrich House & Museum - Elmwood, NE
Willa Cather Childhood Home - Red Cloud, NE

NEW HAMPSHIRE
Robert Frost Farm -Derry, NH
Robert Frost Home & Museum - Franconia, NH

NEW JERSEY

*Walt Whitman House - Camden, NJ (pictured)

NEW MEXICO
D.H. Lawrence Home - Taos, NM

NEW YORK
William Cullen Bryant's Cedarmere - Roslyn Harbor (Long Island), NY
*Washington Irving's Sunnyside - Tarrytown, NY
Christopher Morley's Writing Studio, The Knothole - Roslyn, NY
Edgar Allan Poe Cottage - Bronx, NY
Robert Louis Stevenson Memorial Cottage - Saranac Lake, NY
Walt Whitman Birthplace - Huntington Station, NY

NORTH CAROLINA
Carl Sandburg Home - Flat Rock, NC
Thomas Wolfe Memorial - Asheville, NC

OHIO
Paul Laurence Dunbar House - Dayton, OH
*Harriet Beecher Stowe House - Cincinnati, OH

OKLAHOMA
Will Rogers Birthplace - Oologah, OK
Sequoyah's Homesite - Sallisaw, OK
Laura Ingalls Wilder Surveyor-s House - De Smet, SD

PENNSYLVANIA

Pearl S. Buck House - Perkasie, PA
Zane Grey Museum - Lackawaxen, PA
*Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site - Philadelphia, PA (pictured)

TENNESSEE
Thomas Hughes' Kingston Lisle - Rugby, TN

VERMONT
Rowland Evans Robinson's Rokeby Museum - Ferrisburg, VT

VIRGINIA
Edgar Allan Poe Museum - Richmond, VA
Anne Spencer House - Lynchberg, VA

WEST VIRGINIA
Pearl S. Buck Birthplace - Hillsboro, WV