In the 1830s, young Ralph Waldo Emerson was traveling back to Concord after personal loss. Little did he know he was about to meet Henry David Thoreau, a man whose intellect matched Emerson's and who also had a great effect on American letters. To this pair was eventually added Amos Bronson Alcott and Nathaniel Hawthorne, making the "Concord quartet" of the title, four men who were influential in the transcendentalist movement and whose friendship lasted through poverty, moves, and the American Civil War.

This is an atypical biography in that it begins with Emerson's young adulthood and return to Concord, and focuses most on the relationships between Emerson, Thoreau, Alcott, and Hawthorne, which were not always pleasant. Hawthorne, for example, was extremely shy and apolitical, while the other three were ardent abolitionists. The book itself is a mixed bag. On the one hand, I wasn't aware of the extent of the friendships of these intellectuals, and investigating that was interesting. On the other, it was hard to follow sometimes when the book had such a narrow focus in its thesis, covers so many years (from the 1830s on until each man dies). and still follows all four men as they move or travel. Schreiner quotes heavily from his subjects and their contemporaries, such as Louisa May Alcott and Elizabeth Peabody, yet there are no notes for the reader who would want to learn his primary sources and very little analysis beyond these texts. Overall, while I'm glad I read it, this book is more a teasing starting point than full history, and it has whet my appetite for following up on the subjects that most interested me and looking for the original sources so freely quoted. ( )

For a slightly expanded version of this review, see my blog:
http://jlshall.blogspot.com/2008/03/concord-quartet.html

Samuel Schreiner's The Concord Quartet is a brief portrait of the group of early 19th Century Transcendentalist writers and academics who called Concord, Massachusetts, home during the period of the "American Renaissance" in arts and letters. The book focuses on four major figures: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Amos Bronson Alcott, Henry David Thoreau, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. Schreiner weaves together the individual stories of these four friends and neighbors to produce an interesting look at the intellectual life of the time and place.

This book is a good overview of the subject, not an in-depth examination. I enjoyed it, but its concentration on Emerson left me wanting to know more about the other members of the group. Well, maybe not Thoreau – the picture painted of Henry David makes him seem like a thoroughly unpleasant piece of work, but I think that's probably a pretty accurate portrayal. Nathaniel Hawthorne gets a bit less attention than the others, but he wasn't really resident in Concord for much of the period covered in the book. Unfortunately, he seems to be the most intriguing of them all.

I have to admit, I chose this book mainly because I'm interested in the women associated with the Concord group. Bronson Alcott was the father of Louisa May Alcott, one of my early favorites. And Sophia and Elizabeth Peabody were strong influences on the group – Elizabeth published some of their earliest works, and Sophia married Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Samuel Schreiner was a writer for Reader's Digest, and sometimes The Concord Quartet comes across a little like one of those condensed books put out by the Digest. What's there is interesting, but you keep wishing you could have seen what was left out. ( )