By Nava Atlas | On September 19, 2018 | Updated October 25, 2020 | Comments (0)
It was with great excitement that Literary Ladies Guide helped spread the exhibition at The Morgan Library & Museum (NYC): It’s Alive! Frankenstein at 200, which was on display from October 12, 2018 to January 27, 2019.
It’s hard to overstate the impact of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein on literature as well as popular culture. This exhibit celebrated the 200th anniversary of the 1818 classic, published when its author was barely twenty-one. Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On September 27, 2017 | Updated April 29, 2020 | Comments (6)
Here are 5 classic women authors’ homes to visit in England — see where Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Beatrix Potter, Virginia Woolf, and Vita Sackville-West lived and worked. At right, Beatrix Potter in the doorway of Hill Top House.
For aficionados of classic women authors, there’s nothing like visiting the homes in which they lived and wrote. Fortunately, there are many such homes that are open to the public, keeping the spirit of these authors alive for present and future generations. Many hold public events, and most feature libraries and archives.
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By Nava Atlas | On May 17, 2016 | Updated December 27, 2018 | Comments (0)
Poets House is a must-visit destination for poetry lovers visiting (or living in) New York City. While not at all hard to find, this literary haven far enough off the beaten to make it unlikely that you’d stumble upon it. When you arrive, you’ll be delighted not only by this treasure of a space, but also by its location.
The organization describes itself as “a place for poetry — Poets House is a national poetry library and literary center that invites poets and the public to step into the living tradition of poetry.”
Their mission is to be “a comfortable, accessible place for poetry — a library and meeting place which invites poets and the public to step into the living tradition of poetry. Poets House seeks to document the wealth and diversity of modern poetry, to stimulate dialogue on issues of poetry in culture, and to cultivate a wider audience for poetry.” Read More→
By Nava Atlas | On April 19, 2016 | Updated May 17, 2025 | Comments (2)
Orchard House, best known as the home in which Louisa May Alcott wrote Little Women, is a literary site that’s a must-do for devotees of this classic American author.
Located in Concord, Massachusetts (within an hour of Boston) the house opened its doors to the public in 1911, some twenty-three years after the deaths of Louisa May and her father, the noted philosopher and educator Amos Bronson Alcott.
The interior rooms of Orchard House can be seen via a docent-led tour lasting about an hour. The Alcott family comes to life through the tour guide’s narrative, and questions are cheerfully answered along the way.
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By Nava Atlas | On November 1, 2015 | Updated July 12, 2025 | Comments (5)
Living in New York’s beautiful Hudson Valley gives me access to amazing array of day trips within a 2-hour radius, from the frenetic energy of New York City to the bucolic elegance of the Berkshires, where a group of culture-rich towns and villages are set amidst a modest mountain range in western Massachusetts.
As a semi-regular visitor to the Berkshires, one of my favorite places to visit is The Mount in Lenox, the stately mansion designed and built by Edith Wharton, who took possession of it in 1902.
Though she didn’t live here long — only ten years or so — it was in that interlude that she wrote her breakthrough first novel, The House of Mirth (1905) and the haunting classic, Ethan Frome (1911). Read More→
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