BOOKPATHS

Flannery O'Connor Childhood Home, 207 East Charlton Street, Savannah, Georgia, U.S.

Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) spent the first thirteen years of her life in a home bordering Lafayette Square in Savannah, Georgia.  Recently renovated, “the two main floors of the home have been closely restored to the time that the O’Connor family lived [there],” allowing visitors a chance to step back in time and imagine O’Connor’s childhood.  After touring the home, open from 1:00-4:00 p.m. every day except Thursday, extend your “bookpath” with a walk around Lafayette Square, much as it was when O’Connor walked its cobblestone paths.

Visit The Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home Foundation website for travel information.

(Photograph from the Southern Literary Trail website.)

The Wren’s Nest, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

When in Atlanta, visit The Wrens Nest, “home of Joel Chandler Harris, Uncle Remus, and Brer Rabbit.  Harris lived in this Queen Anne Victorian from 1881 to 1908 and penned many of the Brer Rabbit tales on the front porch.”  The Wren’s Nest is open from 10:00 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, with storytelling everyday Saturday at 1:00 p.m.   Travel information is available on The Wren’s Nest website.

(Photograph from the Georgia Info website.)

Alice Walker Exhibition, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.

“The first public exhibition of papers and other memorabilia from the extraordinary archives of Georgia-born Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker” opened on April 23.  Located in The Schatten Gallery of the Robert W. Woodruff Library, ‘A Keeping of Records: the Art and Life of Alice Walker’ “features 200 items drawn from one of the most complete archives in existence.  The exhibition continues through September 27, 2009.

Sidney Lanier Cottage, Macon, Georgia, U.S.

The cottage where poet Sidney Lanier (1842-1881) was born is open for guided tours Monday through Saturday, 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.   Visitor information is available on the Historic Macon website.

The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

The home where Martin Luther King, Jr. was born is now part of The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site in Atlanta, Georgia.

"Just past noon on January 15, 1929, a son was born to the Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr., in an upstairs bedroom at 501 Auburn Avenue, in Atlanta, Georgia.  It was in these surroundings of home, church (Ebenezer Baptist Church), and neighborhood (Sweet Auburn) that 'M. L.' experienced family and Christian love, segregation in the days of 'Jim Crow' laws, diligence and tolerance." -- from The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site Website

Bookpath: Margaret Mitchell House and Museum, 990 Peachtree Street, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Visitors to Atlanta are invited to “take a tour of the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum.” The 60 to 90-minute “experience” includes “photographs and archival exhibits that tell the story of Margaret Mitchell beyond Gone With the Wind.” Beginning in the Visitor Center with “Before Scarlett: Girlhood Writings of Margaret Mitchell, 1907-1918,” the tour “continues into the house, through her apartment where she wrote Gone With the Wind, and finally to the Gone With the Wind Movie Museum" and Museum Shop.

The Margaret Mitchell House and Museum is open Monday-Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Sundays from noon to 5:00 p.m. Ticket prices are $12.00 for adults, $9.00 for Seniors (65 and older) and Students (13 and older), $5.00 for children 4-12, and children under 4 are free. A discounted rate for groups of 10 or more is available. Special events, classes, and camps are offered throughout the year.

For additional information, including directions, phone 404-249-7015 or visit the Margaret Mitchell House and Museum website. The website also shares historical information about the house, Margaret Mitchell, and Gone with the Wind.

(Photograph from museum website.)

Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Edward Rothstein travels to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s Atlanta.

“There is something so intimate about the connection of Auburn Avenue with Dr. King and his movement that I feel grateful that its vantage point survives. It does largely because Coretta Scott King succeeded in preventing the demolition of her husband’s birth home and helped get the neighborhood named a historic district. Then, after founding the King Center, she lobbied for the creation of what in 1980 became the King National Historic Site and Preservation District, an amalgam of national park, shrine, museum, business-improvement district and historical village still being remodeled to reflect different periods of Dr. King’s life.” – from “In King’s Footsteps, Others Try to Dream,” by Edward Rothstein, New York Times

Bookpath: Carson McCullers Childhood Home, 1519 Stark Avenue, Columbus, Georgia

Owned and maintained by Columbus State University, as part of The Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians, Carson McCullers’ childhood home houses a museum dedicated to the author’s life and work.  Carson McCullers was born Lula Carson Smith in Columbus, Georgia, on February 19, 1917.  “Located on a quiet residential street,” the house at 1519 Stark Avenue was her home from 1925 until she left for New York City in 1944.  The Smith-McCullers House Museum is open to the public by appointment.  Contact the McCullers Center at (706) 327-1911 or by e-mail [email protected].  Visit their website for additional information.

Related Websites

Historic Columbus Foundation

Columbus Convention and Visitors Bureau

Georgia, USA

Lawrence Downes writes about his "pilgrimage" to Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia.

“Many people — me for instance — are in turn haunted by O’Connor. Her doctrinally strict, mordantly funny stories and novels are as close to perfect as writing gets. Her language is so spare and efficient, her images and character’s speech so vivid, they burn into the mind. Her strange Southern landscape was one I knew viscerally but, until this trip, had never set foot in. I had wondered how her fictional terrain and characters, so bizarre yet so blindingly real, might compare with the real places and people she lived among and wrote about.

Hence my pilgrimage to Milledgeville this fall....” – from “In Search of Flannery O’Connor,” by Lawrence Downes, New York Times