The Economy of Walden Pond

by Mark Bauerlein

Jonathan van Belle joins the podcast to discuss his new book, Henry at Work: Thoreau on Making a Living. Continue Reading »

29 May 2023

Denizens of Concord

by Mark Bauerlein

Why concord? That’s the question historian Robert Gross asks at the beginning of this weighty study of the hottest setting of literary-philosophical thought in antebellum America. (Weighty, indeed—the volume in my hand has 608 pages of text, 178 pages of footnotes, and fifteen ­pages of . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jun 2022

Literature of the Word

by Patricia Snow

I have always been somewhat bemused by the perennial popularity of Little Women, Louisa May Alcott’s nineteenth—century novel about four New England sisters coming of age. At least once a decade a new film or television adaptation appears, and the list of successful women writers who . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Oct 2021