Richmond Readings

Mr. Emerson’s Wife by Amy Belding Brown has just been announced as this year’s East of the River Reads One Book selection. This interesting novel about Lydian Emerson, wife of Ralph Waldo Emerson relates the fictional account of her life in Concord and her relationships with its other famous residents.

Multiple copies are available at Richmond and the author will speak in October at Douglas Library.

Here’s some other opinions about our choice:“This is the book I longed to read. It is the story of Lidian, the fascinating woman who was loved insufficiently by Emerson and perhaps too much by Thoreau. Amy Belding Brown has brought her back to life in a novel that glitters with intelligence and authenticity.” –Geraldine Brooks, author of Year of Wonders and March

“In this extraordinary book, Amy Belding Brown has brought the 19th century to life. We may think of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his family and friends as static daguerreotypes, but in this story they lightly spring off the page with all the inconvenient desires and ambitions that are the texture of our own lives. A soaring imaginative leap, this book combines detailed history with a page-turning illicit love story. It’s a look at a rich moment in American History and a great read, a rare combination.” –Susan Cheever, author of My Name is Bill and Note Found in a Bottle

“Brown’s writing is graceful, at times giving Lidian a poetic voice….In an age when scholarly biographers meticulously document every detail in the actions and settings of their subjects, Brown has escaped to the freedom of fiction to suppose ‘what might have been.’” –Christian Science Monitor