Boston was the most important literary center in the United States and home to many of America's greatest writers. Our literary tour highlights the homes and haunts of such great Victorians as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry David Thoreau, Louisa May Alcott, Henry James, Charles Dickens, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Individually, they were writers and poets without peer. Collectively, they made Boston the epicenter of American Letters.

photograph of Louisburg Square on Beacon Hill

S.P. Fuller 1826

William Dean Howells and Louisa May Alcott each for a time lived on Louisburg Square.

Beacon Hill's Louisburg Square. Photo by Tom Coppeto.

What brick building went from being an apothecary's shop to the center of literary Boston? What was the Saturday Club and where did they meet? For answers to these questions and more, join your guide for a walking tour of literary Boston in Victorian times.

Boston By Foot Brochure listing Boston tours in 2008 season Boston By Foot Guided Walking Tours