Bay State Bookmarks

Fact and fiction leave their footprints at these notable literary landmarks

By Michael Blanding

Massachusetts ' place in history books is well known, but its role as a setting in popular and classic literature is less publicized. However, from New Bedford to the Berkshires, there are many locations in the Bay State where the voracious reader can follow the steps of characters from history and fiction. Don't miss these favorite footnotes where books come to life.

Longfellow House

The murders investigated by the 19th-century poets in Matthew Pearl's The Dante Club might not have been real, but the poets themselves existed. Every Wednesday night, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Oliver Wendell Holmes and James Russell Lowell really did meet in Longfellow's home in Cambridge to translate Dante's Divine Comedy . Fans of Pearl 's novel can see the study where the meetings took place and learn a bit more about Longfellow in this Colonial-era house.

Crow's Nest

Before the fishermen in Sebastian Junger's real-life saga, The Perfect Storm , went out to fill their nets, they met at this ramshackle waterfront bar to swap fish stories. After the book was made into a movie, starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg, the Crow's Nest enjoyed a brief moment of fame from tourists coming to snatch one of its signature hats and T-shirts. Now that the hubbub has died down, the bar has mostly returned to its original form — a rough-and-tumble dive inhabited by the folks who work on Gloucester 's waterfront.

Seamen's Bethel

Herman Melville based much of his most famous novel, Moby Dick , on his own experience on a New Bedford whaling ship. It makes sense that he would use this stark white church on the waterfront as the scene for one of the novel's early passages. Inside the church are 31 cenotaphs containing names of whalers and fishermen lost at sea, a sober reminder of the dangers of the whaling trade. An inscription in one pew marks where Melville supposedly sat during an 1840 visit.

Orchard House

Louisa May Alcott's Little Women is a work of fiction, but it draws so heavily on the author's own girlhood, it might as well be a biography. The story of the four March sisters growing up with their eccentric father was faithfully set in the Concord home where Alcott lived from 1858 to 1877. The house and furniture are in essentially the same condition as when the writer lived here, down to the half-moon desk where she penned her beloved book.

The Mount

Victorian writer Edith Wharton once famously said that she was a better gardener than a novelist. You can see for yourself at the palatial mansion and grounds of this Berkshire “summer cottage” where Wharton wrote House of Mirth and entertained Gilded Age society. The flower-filled grounds are left the way the author designed them, while the house has been restored to recreate the ambience of the period — you can almost hear the whispered gossip in the drawing rooms and servants' quarters.

RESOURCES:

Crow's Nest, 334 Main St. , Gloucester , 978.281.2965; crowsnestgloucester.com

Longfellow House, 105 Brattle St. , Cambridge ; 617.876.4491; nps.gov/long . June–Oct., Wed.–Sun., 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m.; tours by appointment during closure; $4

The Mount, 2 Plunkett St. , Lenox; 413.637.1899; edithwharton.org . May–Oct., 9 a.m.–5 p.m.; $16 adults, $8 students, free children under 12

Orchard House, 399 Lexington Rd. , Concord ; 978.369.4118; louisamayalcott.org . April–October, Mon.–Sat., 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m., Sun., 1-4:30 p.m.; November–March, Mon.–Fri., 11 a.m.–3 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m.; Sun., 1 p.m.-4:30 p.m.; $8 adults, $7 seniors and students, $5 ages–17, free children under 6

Seamen's Bethel , 15 Johnny Cake Hill, New Bedford ; 508.992.3295; nps.gov/nebe . Memorial Day–Columbus Day, Mon.–Fri., 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; tours by appointment during closure; donations only