Writers of Western Massachusetts
Professor Samantha Harvey
Boise State University
The Berkshires, a mountainous country retreat, and the bucolic Connecticut River Valley inspired some of America's best writers of the 19th and 20th century, including Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edith Wharton, and Edna St. Vincent Millay. We will read their works and visit their houses and gardens, where some of the great masterpieces of American literature were written.
Reading List
Instructions: Purchase and read these 3 books prior to arriving at Perennial College, and bring books to classes as assigned.
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (any edition)
Edith Wharton, Ghosts
Publisher: NYRB Classics (October 26, 2021)
Paperback: 288 pages, ISBN-10: 1681375729, ISBN-13: 978-1681375724
Dickinson: Selected Poems and Commentaries by Helen Vendler (Author)
Publisher: Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; GLD edition (October 29, 2012)
Paperback: 560 pages, ISBN-10: 0674066383, ISBN-13: 978-0674066380
Optional:
Edith Wharton, The Decoration of Houses
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform (June 14, 2017)
Paperback: 108 pages, ISBN-10: 1547293543, ISBN-13: 978-1547293544
