Famous people houses and museums Itinerary - Writers and Poets

Louisa May Alcott
Orchard House is the home of the Alcott family and the site where Louisa May Alcott wrote her classic "Little Women".
A tour of the house introduces visitors both to objects which were important to the family and to the family members themselves: Amos Bronson Alcott, a transcendental philosopher and teacher; Abigail May Alcott, an independent-minded 19th century woman who was one of the first paid social workers in Massachusetts; Anna Alcott Pratt, Meg in Little Women, who had a talent for acting; Louisa May Alcott, Jo in Little Women, well-known author and advocate for social reform; Elizabeth Sewall Alcott, Beth in Little Women, the "angel in the house," who died shortly before the family moved to Orchard House, and May Alcott Nieriker, Amy in Little Women, a very prolific artist.

Honoré de Balzac
The only house of the many in which Balzac lived which is still standing. Honoré de Balzac (1799 - 1850) was one of the great French writers. He is probably most well known for his La Comédie Humaine - a collection of stories, may of which are set in Paris.
In this particular house - which he rented in the name of his housekeeper to avoid the attentions of creditors - he wrote some of his last works, including La Rabouilleuse, Une Ténébreuse Affaire as well as La Cousine Bette.

Emily Bronte
Emily Brontë was one of three sisters who became famous novelists. Their lives and works are associated with the Yorkshire moors of England where they were born.
People sometimes wonder why the birthplaces of famous people are so important. Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë were small children here, it was not the place where they wrote their books, but the first years of their life spent here were very formative.
Emily wrote only one novel, her romantic masterpiece "Wuthering Heights", a story of the doomed love and revenge.
In this portrait by their brother Branwell, Anne and Emily.

François-René de Chateaubriand
Nothing can define Chateaubriand, poet of genius and nostalgic traveller, better than "La Vallée aux Loups", the nice hermitage he lived in from 1807 to 1817. Impregnated with Madame Récamier's graceful memory, this mansion greeted illustrious personages : writers, politics, painters, musicians, and various celebrities were the guests of the poet. The poet's office, arranged inside of the famous Velléda tower, the silent books, the house entrance, solemnly supported by two white marble caryatids immerse the visitor in the triumphant romanticism atmosphere. Pieces of furniture, priceless objects, wallpapers, ornaments, hangings and precious souvenirs recall the great writer's life and destiny. Remarkable books, such as Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem, Martyrs, The last Abencerage, Moses as well as the beginning ofMemories from beyond the grave were written from the Velléda Tower.

Charles Dickens
English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens's works are characterized by attacks on social evils, injustice, and hypocrisy. Dickens's good, bad, and comic characters, such as the cruel miser Scrooge, the aspiring novelist David Copperfield, or the trusting and innocent Mr. Pickwick, have fascinated generations of readers.
Charles Dickens lived at number 48 Doughty Street from April 1837 to December 1839, not a long period but an important one, because it was here that he really secured his reputation. Visitors to the house may see portions of Dicken's manuscripts, letters, preliminary drawings by his illustrators, first editions of his books, including the original paper wrapped parts, the desk he used for public readings of his works, and many other exhibits, including furniture, pictures, books and memorabilia.

Anne Frank
In the center of Amsterdam there is the house where Anne Frank wrote her famous diary during World War Two. Anne Frank was born in 1929 in Frankfurt am Main in Germany. In 1933, the anti-Jewish National Socialist Party led by Hitler comes to power. Anne's life is increasingly restricted by the anti-Jewish Decrees. Anne writes her diary during the two years in hiding in the Secret Annex. In August 1944, the people in hiding are arrested and deported. Anne goes to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She dies there in March 1945.
The original of the diary is on display as part of the Anne Frank House's permanent exhibition.
Visiting the Anne Frank House has been a moving experience for millions of people from all over the world.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Generally recognized as one of the greatest and most versatile European writers and thinkers of modern times, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, profoundly influenced the growth of literary romanticism. He was without question one of the greatest figures of German culture, encompassing literature, science, music, and philosophy within his work. His early poems and novels display the sensibilities characteristic of the Sturm und Drang movement; his later works, culminating in Faust, superbly synthesize knowledge, philosophy, and art.
He was born on August 28, 1749 and lived in Frankfurt until he was a young man. His birth house was was nearly completely destroyed during the Second World War, but was rebuilt after the war true to its original design, perhaps the only building in the city to be so carefully reconstructed.

Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway, the American author whose ideas of courage and honor in a confusing and hostile world remain as inspiration to this day.This Nobel Prize winner is considered by many to be the greatest, most influential American writer of all time. Hemingway had gained acceptance of the literary crowd that included Gertrude Stein, Ezra Pound, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
The home where he was born in 1899 is a a graceful Victorian, Queen Anne style home.
The museum displays featuring rare photographs of Hemingway, his childhood diary, letters, early writings and other memorabilia. Exhibits and videos at the Museum focus on his first 20 years in Oak Park, and its impact on his later works.

Hermann Hesse
Hermann Hesse is currently the most widely read German language author in the world. His works have been translated into 60 languages, and more than 100 million copies have been sold. He was born in on July 2, 1877 in a house opposite the town hall and he lived in Calw for the greater part of his youth.
In 1919, at the age of 42, Hermann Hesse came to Montagnola where he rented a modest apartment in the Casa Camuzzi. After a period of crisis, he once again took up his pen and also discovered painting as a source of quiet and peaceful pleasure. It was during this time that he wrote "Klingsor’s Last Summer", "Siddhartha", "Narcissus and Goldmund", "Steppenwolf", other poems and stories, and painted numerous watercolors. After moving into Casa Rossa in 1931, "Hours in the Garden" and his great later opus, "The Glass Bead Game", for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1946, were published. Hermann Hesse, who became a Swiss citizen in 1924, felt at home in Montagnola.

Victor Hugo
Poet, novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, historian... without a doubt, Victor Hugo has his place among the French literary greats.
The web-site guides to the houses in Paris and Guernsey where the poet lived. Collections of drawings, paintings and documents tell his life story.
He was only 30 years old when he moved in, and could already afford such an expensive house, the hotel de Rohan-Guemenee. The novel “Notre Dame de Paris” had made him a fortune! You can admire the pens which he used to write most of his great tragedies and the greatest part of Les Miserables, a reconstruction of his bedroom, the Hugo bust of Rodin and the “shelf” of the four poets” with the ink pots of Alexandre Dumas, Georges Sand, Lamartine and of course Victor Hugo.

James Joyce
James Joyce is at once Dublin's most local and most international writer. In his novels the city gains a universal identity like Homer's Mediterranean or Biblical Jerusalem, transcendental, yet ruthlessly realistic.
Today his name is forever linked with that of Dublin.
Situated at the very epicentre of the Joyce Country of Dublin, number 35 North Great George’s Street is a fine example of Dublin’s eighteenth century Georgian architecture. The house, which has been meticulously restored from a condition of dereliction, is now the home of the James Joyce Centre whose purpose is to promote a greater interest in the life and works of this great Irish author and to destroy the myth that his writings are aimed exclusively at the academic.

Jean de La Fontaine
The house where Jean de la Fontaine was born, was built in the Renaissance and is situated at the foot of the Old Château. It opened out onto the road used by the local aristocracy by an imposing carriage gateway crowned with a pediment. This inspirational place was transformed into a museum in 1876 which today reconstructs the poetic universe of Jean de la Fontaine through its collections and special atmosphere. This beautiful private residence, listed as a Historical Monument, with its charming paved courtyard and double flight of stone steps, its old well and garden leading onto the château ramparts, is a wonderful testimony to the life of this poet, who stayed here until 1676, when he was forced to sell the property due to family debts.

Herman Melville
Arrowhead, home of Herman Melville from 1850-1862. It was at Arrowhead that Melville wrote his most famous work, Moby-Dick, along with three other novels, Pierre, The Confidence-Man, and Israel Potter, a collection of short stories entitled The Piazza Tales, all of his magazine stories, and some of his poetry. Arrowhead is now a house museum interpreting the life of the Melville family in the Berkshires. Arrowhead influenced him greatly in his writing. The view of Mount Greylock from his study window, the one that brought him to Arrowhead, was said to be his inspiration for the white whale in Moby-Dick. He dedicated his next novel, Pierre, to Mount Greylock. His short story, “The Piazza,” begins at Arrowhead and takes a magical journey to the mountain. Melville incorporated features and aspects of Arrowhead into several stories. The piazza, after which the story and the book The Piazza Tales were named, is a porch Melville added to the north side of Arrowhead shortly after he purchased the property. Visitors can still stand on that porch and look at the same view Melville had when he spent hours there in his rocking chair.

Margaret Mitchell
Born in 1900 and died in 1949, Margaret Mitchell is recognized as one of the South's most prominent citizens and noted authors. Her love of writing began when she was "old enough to hold a pencil" and stemmed from her mother's encouragement to read the classics and write her own stories. Margaret was inspired by patriotism. Her ancestors were warriors. They fought in the Irish Rebellions, the American Revolution, the Mexican wars, the Civil War and World War I. She would listen with rapt attention to her elders' remembrances of war. Through them, Margaret learned of the character and fortitude needed to overcome the ravages of war and misfortune, a theme she would later incorporate in her classic novel Gone with the Wind. No other novel so clearly epitomizes the cultural impact of bestselling fiction..

Robert Musil
The Austrian writer Robert Musil (1880 - 1942) is one of the most important writers of this centurty. There are still more people that have his novel "The Man Without Qualities" on their book-shelves than that have actually read the book.
Characteristic for the works of Musil is his irony, the exactness of a mathematician (which he was) the ever changing points of view, the influx of the modern age and technique upon the modern day man. A conscientious use of language to express his thoughts (in his diaries he called himself monsieur le Vivisecteur) are coupled with a encyclopedic knowledge of culture and criticism thereof and a psychological mystique.
The museum is carried on by the community of, and it shows permanent exhibitions about Robert Musil, Christine Lavant and Ingeborg Bachmann. You can see a part of Robert Musil’s personal estate; like the travel case, belonging to Robert and Martha Musil, which has been preserved for years in Klagenfurt.

Pablo Neruda
Chilean poet, diplomat, and Marxist, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. Adopted the name Pablo Neruda legally in 1946 after using it over 20 years as a writer. Neruda is the most widely read of the Spanish American poets. From the 1940 his works reflected the political struggle of the left and socio-historical developments in South America, but he also wrote love poems. Neruda's Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair (1924) have sold over a million copies since it first appeared.
Pablo Neruda owned a house in the hills of Valparaíso. The house, with a wonderful view of the city an the harbour of Valparaiso, is full of colours and amazing funny objects which belonged to the poet.
He named the house as "La Sebastiana", which is now owned by the Neruda Foundation, who opened the house in 1992.

Luigi Pirandello
Luigi Pirandello is one of the most representative writers of literature in this century. Thanks to his works, the Italian literature of the first years of the 20th c. goes beyond the narrow borders of Italian culture and gets a world wide dimension, as it is confirmed by the Nobel prize won in 1934. The native house is a farmhouse built at the end of the 18th c. in the countryside area.The rooms hold a large photo collection, reviews and honours, first book editions with autographed dedications, important paintings dedicated to Luigi Pirandello, playbills of his most famous works performed in theatres all over the world. Walking along a path in the countryside close to the museum, you arrive at a very old pine tree. Beneath this huge tree, Pirandello used to sit and think, paint, relax and write to his friends. According to his last will, fulfilled with the cerimony of the transfer of his ashes he was buried here.

Edgar Allan Poe
Best known for his poems and short fiction, Edgar Allan Poe, born in Boston in 1809, deserves more credit than any other writer for the transformation of the short story from anecdote to art. He virtually created the detective story and perfected the psychological thriller. He also produced some of the most influential literary criticism of his time, important theoretical statements on poetry and the short story, and has had a worldwide influence on literature.
The Poe Museum provides a retreat into early nineteenth century Richmond where Edgar Allan Poe lived and worked. The museum features the life and career of Edgar Allan Poe by documenting his accomplishments with pictures, relics, and verse, and focusing on his many years in Richmond.

Alexander Pushkin
Moscow born poet, Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin is considered to be the greatest poet of Russia. In 1817 he joined the government service but unfortunately, was exiled and sent to South Russia. His works entail lyrical poems, novels, tales and essays. The romantic poem Ruslan and Lyudmila (1820) was his first success, followed by Evgeny Onegin (1828), which is a novel in verse.
The Pushkin Memorial Museum is situated in the house where the russian poet lived in one of most beautiful streets of the of Moscow. The Museum's very rich collection ( including portraits in oil and watercolour, rare engravings and lithographs, mahogany and Karelian birch furniture, objects in gilded bronze, leather bound books, pages of journals and annuals yellowed with time) will enable visitors to see the Moscow streets and houses of Pushkin's days and the faces of his contemporary Moscovites, to feel the atmosphere of Moscow life in the 1830s.

Walter Scott
Abbotsford is the house built and lived in by Sir Walter Scott, the 19th century novelist, and author of timeless classics such as Waverley, Rob Roy, Ivanhoe and The Lady of the Lake.
Sir Walter Scott purchased Cartleyhall farmhouse on the banks of the River Tweed in 1812. Together with his family and servants, he moved into the farm which he renamed Abbotsford.
Scott was a passionate collector of historic relics, including an impressive collection of armour and weapons, Rob Roy's gun and Montrose's sword, and over 9,000 rare volumes in his library.
Visitors will be able to Sir Walter Scotts study, library, drawing room, entrance hall and armouries, and the dining room overlooking the Tweed where Sir Walter died on 21st September, 1832.

William Shakespeare
The five Shakespeare Houses in and around Stratford-upon-Avon have been beautifully preserved by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
The houses offer a chance to experience the Stratford world in which William Shakespeare, the famous dramatist and poet, was born, lived and died. Each house has its own fascinating story to tell and it’s possible discover what it might have been like to live in Stratford-upon-Avon during Shakespeare's day.
The half-timbered building in Henley Street, with its extensive ground to the rear, was bought by Shakespeare's father, John, probably in two stages (in 1556 and 1575): it’s the house where Shakespeare and his brothers and sisters were born and brought up.

Rabindranath Tagore
Hewas born in Calcutta in a wealthy and prominent Bramho family. Greatest writer in modern Indian literature, Bengali poet, novelist, educator, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore was awarded knighthood in 1915, but he surrendered it in 1919 as a protest against the Massacre of Amritsar, where British troops killed some 400 Indian demonstrators protesting colonial laws. Tagore's reputation as a writer was established in the United States and in England after the publication of GITANJALI: SONG OFFERINGS.
Rabindra Bharati Museum can be considered as the storehouse of memoirs of Rabindranath Tagore consisting of his original paintings, photographs,books and other valuable documents which our country is proud of.
The museum also possesses records of songs in the voices of exponents who learnt songs directly from Tagore, paintings both in Indian and Western style and the Anglo-Indian school respectively and traditional schools of Bengal district and also Bazar paintings.

Mark Twain
Step back to the Gilded Age during guided tours of the 19-room, Tiffany-decorated mansion where Mark Twain raised his family and worked from 1874 to 1891. During this incredibly productive period, Twain created such classics as The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
The Mark Twain House stands today as a monument to one of America's greatest writers and social commentators.
The house contains many pieces of Clemens family furniture, including Twain's ornate Venetian bed and an intricately-carved mantel from a Scottish castle. The museum is also fortunate to have a billiard table owned by the author.

Giovanni Verga
Giovanni Verga, novelist and short story writer, is one of the most important representatives of the Italian verism and naturalism. Verga's novels are still part of our literary background, and being translated in many languages, they have been performed in the best theatres and have fascinated the cinema with unforgettable characters.
The museum, situated in the old city centre , is the house where Verga spent his childhood and lived for many years surrounded by his family and friends. Inside there are all the books and furniture owned by Giovanni Verga. After few years the writer's death, material regarding Verga's pioneer interest in photography was found in via S. Anna. Plates and films (now a private collection) show an interest in documentary shoots which, even if by chance, does not go to far from the veristic ideology.
The photographs reproduce mainly his family members: his mother, brothers, uncles, grandchildren, as well as the farmers who worked for Verga's family, in the Tébidi countryside, in Vizzini.