An Island Garden: Restored Classics to Go Edition

Celia Thaxter (1835–1894) was an American poet and writer best known for her lyrical evocations of coastal New England life. She grew up largely on the Isles of Shoals off the New Hampshire coast, where her father kept a lighthouse, and that isolated, wind-scoured island world shaped her sensibility for the rest of her life. She later became a celebrated hostess and literary figure at the Appledore House hotel on the Isles of Shoals, which her family ran, drawing prominent writers, artists, and musicians of the era into her orbit. Thaxter's poetry, often rooted in the sea, seabirds, storms, and the rhythms of island living, earned her wide popularity during her lifetime and appeared regularly in leading magazines of the day. She also cultivated a passionate interest in gardening, tending a small but famously vivid flower garden on Appledore that became something of a local legend among her visitors and correspondents. Her writing combined careful natural observation with a warm, personal voice, and she remained a fixture of the New England literary and artistic scene until her death in 1894.