Emerson's daughters : Ellen Tucker Emerson, Edith Emerson Forbes, and their family legacy / Kate Culkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Culkin, Kate, 1969- author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Emerson, Ellen Tucker.

Forbes, Edith Emerson, 1841-1929.

Forbes, Edith Emerson.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 1803-1882--Family.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo.

Emerson family.

Sisters--Massachusetts--Concord--Biography.

Sisters.

Concord (Mass.)--Biography.

Concord (Mass.).

Concord (Mass.)--History.

Genre:

Biographies.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xviii, 285 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Amherst : University of Massachusetts Press, 2025.

Summary:

"Ellen Tucker Emerson and Edith Emerson Forbes, the daughters of Lidian Jackson and Ralph Waldo Emerson, grew up in the heart of Concord, Massachusetts's famed literary community. In a culture that celebrated self-reliance, Ellen and Edith formed a partnership that only strengthened as their paths diverged, with Ellen remaining in the family home and Edith marrying William Forbes, moving to Milton, Massachusetts, and having eight children. The partnership allowed them to tend to the demands and opportunities created by their father's career, including serving as his secretaries and editors, and helped them shape his posthumous image. It also enabled them to adapt to historical developments stretching from the Civil War to American imperialism as well as personal ones, including Edith's growing family and travel and study abroad, and inevitable ones brought on by the aging processes of their parents and themselves. Emerson's Daughters is a biography of a sisterhood, the first full-length study of Ellen's and Edith's lives. Building on archival research into the extensive correspondence between the sisters, it adds to the growing body of work on women's contribution to Transcendentalism while opening a window onto the rich, and understudied, family life of the "Sage of Concord.""-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Chapter One: "Our Beautiful Poem Edith, and Our Excellent Prose Ellen"

Chapter Two: "We Each Have Something Good and Both Want All"

Chapter Three: "I Was Never So Carried Away by Anything Before"

Chapter Four: "I Wrote for Myself as Well as for You"

Chapter Five: "What a Mercy It Is That There are Women in the World to Arrange for Men"

Chapter Six: "The Power of Our Life Has Been Very Kind"

Chapter Seven: "In Reading a Biography I Always Like Best the Personal Parts"

Chapter Eight: "Be Content to Remain a Dove and Let Me Remain a Cat"

Chapter Nine: "Thank You Over and Over for Helping Me Out"

Chapter Ten: "I Am So Glad We Had So Much Time Together"

Chapter Eleven: "Wherever She Went, She Planted a Garden."

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1685751598

9781685751593

168575158X

9781685751586

OCLC:

1521496183