Many of the literary masterpieces of 19th-century American literature were written within a relatively short span of time by writers who lived in Concord, Massachusetts. This assemblage of intellectuals continues to American Bloomsbury, Susan Cheever’s spirited, perceptive and clear-eyed portrait of literary icons Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne and Henry David Thoreau, the author writes that she discovered "more and more coincidences of greatness being the result of proximity to greatness." Cheever, author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, has firsthand knowledge of life with a famous writer and is perhaps best known for her exquisite and acclaimed memoir, Home Before Dark, which tells of her life as the daughter of novelist and short story writer John Cheever.

American Bloomsbury covers the period from roughly 1840 to 1882, the year Emerson died. It was he who was most responsible for the gifted group of writers being in Concord; he encouraged and, more importantly, financed them. Although his lecture fees helped, it was Emerson’s inheritance from the death of his first wife—a settlement he had to contest in court—that made a significant difference. According to Cheever, "without this obscure lawsuit in 1836, it’s hard to know what would have happened in Concord, if anything."

Despite these writers’ progressive thinking on other issues, Cheever notes that "one of the beliefs of the age, one that had a deep impact on the Concord community, was that women were inferior to men, not just in physical strength, but in emotional strength and intelligence." The presence of the brilliant Margaret Fuller should have been enough to convince everyone of the absurdity of this kind of thinking. Fuller was, as Cheever tells us, "both erotically and imaginatively entangled" with Emerson and Hawthorne, although they were married to other women. She was committed to bringing about a revolution for women’s place in society and took jobs that heretofore only men had done. In the 12 years following Fuller’s death, Cheever writes, Hawthorne memorialized her in his fiction, which included "four of the greatest American novels ever written."

Other Concord women played more traditional roles. Emerson’s second wife, Lidian (she changed her name from Lydia at Emerson’s request), for example, found life with him to be extremely demanding; she felt Thoreau was "the one human being on earth who seemed to see her clearly." Louisa May Alcott, who spent much of her life taking care of her family, had doubts about writing Little Women, but "without intending to," according to Cheever, "invented a new way to write about the ordinary lives of women, and to tell stories that are usually heard in kitchens and bedrooms."

Cheever’s enthusiasm for her subjects comes through on every page of American Bloomsbury. She introduces us to these writers as human beings rather than literary monuments. After reading her book, many will be inspired to read or reread the works of this extraordinary group of writers.

Roger Bishop is a retired Nashville bookseller and a frequent contributor to BookPage.

Chris Baty is the founder of National Novel Writing Month (a.k.a. NaNoWriMo), a six-year-old literary contest that began on a whim in the Bay Area and now involves thousands of participants nationally every year. How does it work? Simple all one needs do is craft a 50,000-word novel in a month’s time. It sounds a little kooky, but in fact there’s probably a huge upside to this hardcore, guerrilla-style approach. After all, nothing succeeds like doing, and the fearless NaNoWriMo methodology incorporates an enforced boot-camp mindset that yields results, however imperfect. Baty’s No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days stylishly describes the NaNoWriMo regimen plenty of music and lots of coffee are included and dispenses handy advice on tapping into instant inspiration, hammering out plot and getting the job done. Or, as one NaNoWriMo winner says, “I don’t wait for my muse to wander by; I go out and drag her home by the hair.” They say there’s a novel in each of us; if so, this volume may be the key to unlocking that ominous door. Baty’s surface frivolity is underscored with serious intent, and his book’s handy sidebars provide good realistic advice for all writers.

Barbara DeMarco-Barrett is a journalist, editor, creative writing instructor and host of a weekly Southern California radio program called “Writers on Writing.” Drawing upon her professional experiences and the wisdom of many best-selling writers, she has produced Pen on Fire: A Busy Woman’s Guide to Igniting the Writer Within. This inspirational handbook is filled with smart counsel for both beginners and those a little further along looking for reassurance. In particular, it benefits from endless anecdotes and reflections from working pros on diverse subjects such as doing research, crafting dialogue, developing good writing habits, finding mentors, approaching an agent, and even some of the stickier interpersonal issues that come with the writing life (“You love him, but can’t he see you’re trying to work?”). The book’s subtitle makes a presumed pitch toward today’s harried moms and female executives who might want to add a burgeoning writing career to their full plates. Since finding time to write is a stumbling block for many modern-day wannabes (male and female alike), DeMarco-Barrett offers a series of practical 15-minute exercises designed to prod ideas along and get that writing muscle to flex. Its strictly market-conscious feminist slant aside, this volume offers an informative, wide-ranging and sensible approach to its topic for everyone. Best of all, the author’s tone of encouragement is both friendly and sincere.

A. Alvarez’s The Writer’s Voice is a relatively brief but concentrated exegesis in which the noted poet, novelist and literary critic addresses an advanced area of the writer’s challenge. “For a writer,” Alvarez states, “voice is a problem that never lets you go, and I have thought about it for as long as I can remember if for no other reason than that a writer doesn’t properly begin until he has a voice of his own.” Nuts-and-bolts guidelines on achieving voice don’t really exist, and Alvarez attempts instead to describe this somewhat elusive notion, offering a mini-seminar that ranges far and wide over writers and various writing movements, from Coleridge to Ginsberg, with side trips to the New Criticism of the 1950s, the Extremist poets, the modernism of Pound and Eliot, the Beats, Shakespeare, Roth, Cheever and Henry James. Alvarez spends serious time defining the distinctions between prose and poetry, and his obvious affection for the latter (Berryman, Plath, Sexton and others) leads him into interesting discussions on the music and rhythm of words, on the importance of listening, on voice as opposed to style concluding with the hard-won realization that “true eloquence is harder than it looks.” There’s a lot more here, as Alvarez manages to bring international politics, Freud, Romantic Agony and the cult of personality into his discussion. He does it all with wit and erudition; indeed, his own voice is nothing if not confident. According to Alvarez, “It is the business of writers to create as true a voice as they can if only to show themselves that it can be done, and in the hope that someone out there is listening.”

Public attention has focused in recent years on charges of professional misconduct by four prominent historians, all authors of best-selling and award-winning books. Doris Kearns Goodwin and the late Stephen Ambrose were accused of plagiarism. Joseph Ellis was charged with lying about his personal experience during the Vietnam/civil rights era. Michael Bellesiles was said to have falsified research data for his Arming America. In the enlightening Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud American History from Bancroft and Parkman to Ambrose, Bellesiles, Ellis, and Goodwin, University of Georgia historian Peter Charles Hoffer, who has advised in cases of similar charges against other historians, helps nonhistorians understand these episodes.

Hoffer examines each of the four recent situations in detail. He acknowledges that both Ambrose, who died in 2002, and Goodwin are “superb storytellers” and that pinpointing plagiarism in earlier trade history books would be difficult. Many of those books had virtually no reference apparatus at all. The case of Ellis was personal and while Hoffer does not condone what Ellis did, he does think that these personal fictions “seemed to work wonders for Ellis’s powers of historical description and insight into the character of his subjects.” The Bellesiles case involved “serious deviations from accepted practices in carrying out [and] reporting results from research,” as stated in one official report.

Hoffer writes that when the 19th century ended, historians portrayed the U.S. as “one people, forming one nation, with one history.” This view “embraced profound fictions,” for the most part excluding women, people of color, and slavery. Significant changes came in the 1960s with the “new history.” But this also brought a demand for “methodological sophistication that . . . widened the divide between academic and popular history.” Hoffer says this led the profession to fail to provide what had made consensus history so compelling: “proof that American history could inspire and delight.” Roger Bishop is a Nashville bookseller and frequent contributor to BookPage.

The mystique and attraction of Mary Poppins, written in 1934, appear stronger now than ever. Television shows like Nanny 911 and Supernanny feature British nannies coming to the rescue of American families. Last year’s Nanny McPhee featured a British nanny with magical powers. And a theater production of Mary Poppins, co-produced by Disney, opens on Broadway this month. Yet the irony is that most people’s impression of the famous nanny comes from the 1964 Disney film, not from the series of books written by Australian-born writer P.L. Travers. In Mary Poppins, She Wrote, journalist Valerie Lawson does an admirable job of recounting Travers’ life and sorting out the Poppins created by Travers and the one distorted by Disney. Travers’ Poppins, seemingly a composite of different people from her restless life, rarely cracked a smile and tended toward mysticism and religious symbolism rather than song. The original Mary Poppins was never charming. . . . Almost sadistic at times, Mary is never really nasty but often very sharp. She is a controlling force, making order from disorder, making magic, then never admitting magic took place, writes Lawson.

Like a diligent therapist, Lawson who corresponded with Travers and was allowed access to her papers after Travers’ death in 1996 at the age of 96 digs into Travers’ past and speculates about the origins of the characters populating her memorable books. She tells of Travers’ start as an actress and poet, her study of Eastern religions and her tangling with Walt Disney himself over the making of the movie. In a letter to her London publisher, Travers wrote that the film was Disney through and through, spectacular, colourful, gorgeous but all wrapped around mediocrity of thought, poor glimmerings of understanding, and oversimplification. Ironically, the huge Hollywood success overshadowed the complex story of Travers’ own life.

Lisa Waddle is a writer in Nashville.

A must-have for any bibliophile, American Writers at Home, co-published by the Library of America and the Vendome Press, provides a peek into the private lives of 21 famous literary figures. Taking readers on a coast-to-coast tour, this wonderful book visits the painstakingly preserved homes of a wide range of writers. From Eugene O’Neill’s elegant, understated residence in Danville, California, to Washington Irving’s charming cottage in Tarrytown, New York, the volume presents a liberal cross section of authors, regions and eras. Photographer Erica Lennard provides captivating portraits of each artist’s workspace, illuminating the day-to-day routines of American favorites like Nathaniel Hawthorne, Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson and Edith Wharton. The text by poet J.D. McClatchy includes fascinating anecdotes about the domestic habits and working methods of each figure. The breathtaking visuals, showcasing typewriters, parchment, manuscripts and other tools of the trade, combined with McClatchy’s commentary, make the book an intriguing meditation on the importance of personal space to the creative lives of writers. Julie Hale is a writer in Austin, Texas.

An artist unafraid to improvise at life, Henry David Thoreau was a man who dared to be an idealist. In 1845, he conducted his famous experiment in the woods of Massachusetts, single-handedly building a cabin on Walden Pond, where he weathered two winters in solitude. Honoring his strength of spirit and unique wisdom, Walden: 150th Illustrated Edition of the American Classic was recently published, with unforgettable color photographs by Texas native Scot Miller. Released to mark the 150th anniversary of the original publication of Walden, this beautiful volume was produced by Houghton Mifflin (Thoreau’s original publisher) in conjunction with the Walden Woods Project, a nonprofit organization established by singer-songwriter Don Henley to protect the wilderness immortalized in Thoreau’s work. Complementing Thoreau’s original text, Miller’s stunning photographs capture the serenity and majesty of the Massachusetts wilderness in each of the four seasons. With a special introduction by nature writer E.O. Wilson, this lavish volume is a bargain at $28.12 (that’s half a cent less than Thoreau spent on the construction of his cabin). A portion of the proceeds from sales of the book will go to the Walden Woods project.

Julie Hale is a writer in Austin, Texas.