Friday, December 12, 2014

Literary Landmarks


I read a wonderful article the other day about how NYC has recognized Carl Shurz Park as a literary landmark.

For those of you who don't know, Carl Shurz Park is one of Harriet's hangouts in Harriet the Spy.

Did you know Harriet the Spy is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year?

It is!


Harriet The Spy: 50th Anniversary Edition


Harriet is one of my favourite literary characters and I actually re-read the book this past summer, as I hadn't done so since I was ten years old.

My copy is the old Yearling edition:

harriet the spy book | Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh - Loved this book when I was about 12 or 13.


I loved Dell Yearling Editions - they were such a nice weight to read.

When I go to NYC in March I am going to have to take a little pilgrimage up to the Park, and make sure I am carrying my trusty notebook.  I will take some surreptitious notes about strangers, or at least Barry, and hope that the notebook doesn't get into the wrong hands!

I love the fact that The Park has been recognized in this way.  Visiting literary landmarks is always such a treat, but we tend to think of these sites as places of long ago - The Alcott House for example, the various Laura Ingalls Wilder places, and so on.  One of my dreams is to do a literary landmark tour of the UK, the US and Canada  someday.  I love walking in the same places that my favourite characters have walked.

There is a wonderful book about a mother who did just such a trip in the UK with her children:

How The Heather Looks: A Joyous Journey To The British Sources Of Children's Books

I read this book years and years ago, at least twenty, but I see it was re-issued in 2010 and it is such a delight.  I am going to dig my copy up and read it again soon!

Recently, Barry and I were visiting my hometown.  The book that I hope is published one day takes place in my old neighbourhood and as we were driving to see a friend I said "There's where the dugout is" (which is meaningful to about 5 people in the world who have read the book thus far) and he got all excited.  So maybe someday, if I am really fortunate, that little spot will be a literary landmark, too!  At the very least, it will be one to me!

Where would you like to go visit?

Right now, I am almost done Wolf Hall and think another visit to London is in order toute de suite!

Before that I was reading a wonderful book called I, Coriander, by Sally Gardner, which also takes place in London, so really, there is a theme there.  I know Dani got to visit Beatrix Potter's corner of the world and Wordsworth's this past summer, both of which are places on my list!


I, Coriander


I think I'd like to hit some Mitford and Churchill haunts as well...

Books have the incredible ability to transport us to new and wonderful places.  When some of those places turn out to be places we can actually visit, all the better!

Have a wonderful Friday and stay safe out there!

Wendy


24 comments:

  1. I have never thought about books this way. I am pretty sure I have been in some places related to book, but I never made the connection. The only place I visited which was related to books was Rudyard Kipling's house. But I am not sure if he used it in his book.
    Have a wonderful weekend Wendy.

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    1. You're right, Steph - you often see the birthplace and home, but not always where the characters were!

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  2. oddly the only places i want to go to literary wise is the moors where heathcliff wandered and i would not mind timbuktu but just for the libraries. oh and samerkand just to see the cross junction where marco polo hung out.

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    1. Same here, when I was young I wanted my honeymoon to be in the moors with my own Heathcliff.

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  3. A thing I love about London and Paris is the little plaques on houses, gated entrances, even posts, that tell you who lived there and when: musician, admiral, inventor, diplomat, writer...

    Paris, sadly, also has little plaques to mark the spots and exact dates where gallant men or women died 1940-45. Even the street signs tell you, in smaller letters, in fewer words about the person the street was named for: écrivain, philosophe, résistante. This is so in all the cities and towns in France.

    When you walk the streets of these old cities, you are time-travelling.

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    1. That's really a great thing with Europe, they go all out to preserve history. In Florence, quotations from Dante's Divine Comedy are written in marble above the street signs.

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  4. I like to do this, too. You can sail/drive by EBWhite's place up here. In Denmark, I made a pilgrimage to Karen Blixen's house and grave, a beautiful place with lovely espalier. When in London years ago with the girls, we had to see track 9 1/2 where one accesses the train to Hogwart's at King Crossing ( we were on our way to Scotland); very puzzling to the littler one!

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    1. We never got to King's Crossing, but on the list! I'd love to see E.B's place, not just because of him, but because of Katherine. I loved her gardening book!

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  5. Harriet the Spy was always on my reading list as a teacher. On our annual "dress as your favourite character from a book" Meg dressed as Harriet. Loved that aspect of teaching and reading.

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    1. It's fun isn't it? That's when the story really comes alive!

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  6. Dan Brown's novels have set a flurry of tours in Rome (Angels and Demons) and Florence (Inferno Tour). There must be a demand for these as there are a few in NY for movie landmarks. Washington Square Park featured frequently in the novels of Henry James and Edith Wharton. In Central Park there are a couple, the Carousel in Catcher in the Rye and the Conservatory water in Stuart Little. Have you set the dates for your March trip?

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    1. Funny - when I read Dante's Inferno, I looked up pictures, and it really helped me. Florence is on the list! We arrive Monday march 2 at supper time and leave that Friday morning. Will be so much fun!

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  7. I know these are cliche, but my first trip to the Plaza hotel was magical, and every trip to the Metropolitan Museum of art reminded me of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. And I dreamed and dreamed of visiting the Little House locations when I was little. Now, I would be happy to have a cocktail in one of Martha Grimes' English pubs. But, only if Melrose Plant was sitting next to me.

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    1. oh, I loved the Little House books! must say, though, that coming back to them was scary, what seemed like adventures when I was a kid, the blizzard, the hostiles, the crop failures, were terrifying when I thought what it would be like trying to raise little kids in those conditions. And charming Pa, with his fiddle, seemed, well, unstable to adult me.

      love Melrose, too, btw.

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    2. Love those! I am with you Fred - Pa had a lot of wanderlust... I haven't been to the Plaza. Must add to list!

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  8. Wendy,
    Your 'dugout' will be a literary landmark in my book and I'll make a pilgrimage there and reconnect with the Dickens house, the mythical 221B Baker Street, etc. Here in Chicago we have Oz Park (about 2 blocks south of The Red Lion) named after the writer/creator of The Wizard of Oz with a monument of an 8 foot tall Tin Man standing sentry atop a brick platform. I love that stuff and NYC also has the Literary Walk in Central Park with all the usual suspects represented.

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    1. GSL - how could I forget Dickens and Baker Street? And how did I not know that my favourite movie has a statue in Chicago! I have hot to get to Chicago!

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  9. Hi, Miss Golden Pants, you're posts are making me laugh. I know just how you feel about big bills for necessary work that nobody sees. The trousers are great, I want them! But I would also want them to fit me right from the start.
    When you do your grand literary tour of Blighty you must come to the West Country and fit in Bath for Jane Austen and Lyme Regis also for her together with John Fowles. And don't forget ME! First novel finished, but who will publish?!

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  10. I've gone to many of the literary sites in the Uk, France, Italy and Canada. My kids always get a kick out of it and it makes for nice memories.

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  11. I had no idea Harriet was so old!! The story is so fresh and relevant to todays kids, it's quite amazing to think that not a lot changes with what matters across the ages.
    I'd love to go on a literary tour, Bronte country, Jane Austin, the Lake District, but also those places in the Little House books you've mentioned. I've always wondered what happened to that last place they lived in with the blizzards every 7 years, and every 21 years a terrible Winter.
    How exciting that your book is coming along so well too xx

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    1. Heidi, the Bronte Parsonage museum in West Yorkshire is quite lovely and does annual exhibits. There is a 5 or so mile steam train there from Keighly, if you want the full travel back in time experience ;-)

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  12. BACKSTORY What a lovely inspiring post and comments WMM. I do want to know right where the dugout is, summer visit. I remember driving my uni friends nuts on my first trip to Dublin, stopping in homage at Oscar Wilde's house. And one must have a "Bawth!," if ever staying at The Plaza.

    My two absolute favourite scribe shrines are Hemingway's home in Cuba and Fleming's Goldeneye (first visited at age 7, not nearly as glam as is now.) I could just see them both writing there. The weather holds a certain appeal as well.

    Off to dig Harriet out of her locker box for a re-read tonight...

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  13. Don't know any of these books ...deprived childhood! Wasted all my time on secret seven and such.
    Went to Hemingway bar in Cuba, but not a shred of him, every touristy. The best place I ever went homewise where you really felt like the person could rise out of his bath is Winston Churchill. As he used to dictate in his bath all morning we would have had a long wait though...

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