I pride myself in being from New England and so I have decided to compile a list of well known New England Writers.
Edgar Allen Poe
Robert Frost
Robert David Thoreau
Stephen King
Mark Twain
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Emily Dickenson
Silvia Plath
Maurice Sendak
Stephanie Meyer
Truman Capote
Harriet Beecher Stowe
F. Scott Fitzgerald
Suzanne Collins
Robert Penn Warren
Hellen Keller
Edna Ferber
Robert Ludlum
Annie Proulx
Elizabeth Gilbert
Candace Bushnell
Arthur Miller
Louisa May Alcott
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Mark Vonnegut
Theodor Seuss Geisel or Dr. Seuss
And so many more….
Check back for newly added authors.
There are a good deal of authors on this list that are not true “New Englanders”. One good example is Mark Twain, as he was born in Missouri, and was raised along the Mississippi River. The experience of his riverside childhood was what inspired arguably his greatest work “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, as the tale is centered around the Mississippi. The same can be said for F. Scott Fitzgerald, as his experience growing up the midwest was what gave him ideas regarding the background’s of certain characters in his greatest work, “The Great Gatsby”. It is important to get the facts straight when discussing the backgrounds of authors. Where one lives for a period of time in their adult life is different than where said person was raised. Childhood experiences mold one’s way of thinking and how they see the world. How one is raised can have a profound impact on their outlook on life, and they express their thoughts and their own story in a way, through the details of their works. It is through the details of the plot that we can truly understand an author, and who they are. This is why it is important to differentiate where an author was raised and is actually “from” rather than where they lived for a period of time.
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Wow, it sounds like you really took time to think about this and share it with me. I appreciate you taking time to think about this list that I gathered. I did gather it out of pure enjoyment and not literary theory or in depth biographical research. It is just fun.
I’d love to share though, as a writer myself, I realize how much a place can impact me even if I’ve only lived/visited for a short time. Though an artist may be brought up across the world or the continent, the muse is still the muse regardless of where the artist resides.
This is just a fun list of artists who lived in New England. It’s not referring to much else other than the fact that New England housed these writers whether temporary or for their entire lives.
I appreciate your attention to detail and how well you know your classic writers. I appreciate the classics as well.
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