American Bloomsbury : Louisa May Alcott, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau : their lives, their loves, their work / Susan Cheever

Includes bibliographical references (p. [211]-214) and index.

Concord, Massachusetts -- The Alcotts arrive for the first time -- Louisa, girl interrupted -- Louisa in love...Henry David Thoreau -- Sic Vita -- Two loves -- Ellen Sewall -- Money -- Emerson pays for everything -- Two deaths -- The curse of Salem -- Hawthorne emerges -- The execution -- Another triangle -- Bronson Alcott, peddler turned pedant -- Fruitlands -- Sex -- Thoreau goes to New York City -- Wall of fire -- Walden Pond -- Margaret Fuller, the sexy muse -- Rome -- The Margaret ghost -- Hawthorne leaves Salem forever -- Stockbridge -- Melville -- The railroad -- Community -- Without Margaret -- Louisa May Alcott returns -- Louisa in Boston -- Concord again -- Walden, Walden -- Thoreau now -- Leaving Walden -- The birth and death of Margaret Fuller -- Shipwreck -- The Hawthornes' return to Concord -- President Frank -- Bayonets and bullets -- Local martyr -- The death of Thoreau -- Louisa in Washington, D.C. -- Return and illness -- Hawthorne leaves Concord -- Death -- Little Women -- Emerson and the fire -- Concord, today.