Although my mother-in-law was born in New York, she spent the last years of her life in New Hampshire. On our annual visits to Mom Brazil, my husband and I were delighted to include some side trips to historical sites like Boston’s Old State House and the USS Constitution, and the Hemmings Vehicle Display in Bennington, Vermont. Of course, since I was a writer and we were in New England, I insisted on seeing the houses where novelists Edith Wharton and Louisa May Alcott lived and wrote.

My literary pilgrimages to Wharton’s The Mount and Alcott’s Orchard House infused me with joy, wonderment, enthusiasm, and, to be honest, envy. After seeing where these women wrote, I wanted to step into their lives, hoping that living where they lived would enable me to write with as much perception and persistence as they did. And, to be honest, enjoy some of their success!

So here, for your Summer 2021 pleasure, are some Literary Pilgrimage suggestions. As always, please share any links to your favorite historical fiction Literary Pilgrimages in the comments below.

Where they were born:

• Eudora Welty, Pulitzer prize-winning author of The Optimist’s Daughter–  N. Congress Street, Jackson, MS.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby – 481 Laurel Avenue, St. Paul, MN.
• Hans Christian Andersen, author of The Little Mermaid – Hans Jensens Stræde 45, Odense, Denmark.
• Lucy Laud Montgomery, author of Anne of Green Gables – New London, Prince Edward Island, Canada.
• Robindronath Tagore, Nobel prize-winning author of Gitanjali: Song Offerings – Jorasanko Thakurbari, Jorasanko, Kolkata, India.

 

Where they wrote:

• Anne Frank, author of The Diary of Anne Frank – Anne Frank House, Amsterdam. (Thanks, C.V. Lee!)
• Charles Dickens, author of A Christmas Carol – 48 Doughty Street, London, England.
• Charlotte, Emily,  and Anne Brontë, authors of Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall  – Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Keighley, West Yorkshire, England.
• Edgar Allen Poe, poet and short story writer – Edgar Allen Poe Cottage in The Bronx, NY.
• Ernest Hemingway, journalist and author of To Have and Have Not – Hemingway Home, Key West, FL.
• Fyodor Dostoyevsky, author of The Brothers Karamazov – The F. M. Dostoyevsky Literary Memorial Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.
• Jack London, journalist and author of The Call of the Wild and Charmian Kittredge London, author of The Log of the Snark – Jack London State Park, Glen Ellen, CA. (Thanks, Lynn Downey!)
• Jane Austen, author of Price and Prejudice – Jane Austen’s House, Chawton, Hampshire, England. (Thanks, Edie Cay!)
• Lope de Vega,  Spanish dramatist and author of “La corona trágica” – Lope de Vega House Museum, Madrid, Spain. (Thanks, Rebecca D’Harlingue!)
• Mark Twain, author of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County– Mark Twain Cabin, Sonora, CA (Thanks again, Edie Cay!)
• Virginia Woolf, author of Mrs. Dalloway – Monks House, Sussex, England.
• Washington Irving, author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – Sunnyside, Tarrytown, NY.

 

Where we hope they Rest In Peace:

PÈRE LACHAISE CEMETERY, PARIS

• Alice B. Toklas, American author of The Alice B. Toklas Cookbook.
• Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney, author of Meditations On The Ruins of Empires.
• Enrique Gómez Carrillo, Guatamalean journalist and “Prince of the Chroniclers”.
• Gertrude Stein, American author of The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas.
• Honoré de Balzac, author of La Comédie humaine.
• Jean de La Fontaine, poet and author of Fables.
• Jim Morrison, American songwriter.
• Molière (Jean-Baptiste Poquelin), playwright and poet.
• Oscar Wilde, Irish novelist and author of The Portrait of Dorian Gray.
• Richard Wright, American author of Native Son.
• Sadegh Hedayat, Iranian author of The Blind Owl.

SLEEPY HOLLOW CEMETERY, CONCORD, MASSACHUSETTS

• Harriett M. Lothrop (aka Margaret Sidney), author of Five Little Peppers.
• Henry David Thoreau, poet and author of Walden.
• Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women.
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter.
• Ralph Waldo Emerson, poet.

WOODLAWN CEMETERY, BRONX, NEW YORK

• Bat Masterson, journalist.
• Damon Runyon, short-story writer.
• E.L. Doctorow, author of Ragtime.
• Frank Belknap Long, horror author.
• Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick.
• Irving Berlin, songwriter of Alexander’s Ragtime Band.
• Nelly Bly, journalist and author of Ten Days in a Mad-House.

 

Finis!