During National Book Month, Tour American Writers’ Homes
Explore the houses that inspired famous tales and poems, and the places where authors worked
Houzz has explored a number of prominent American writers’ homes over the years, in features and on home tour road trip itineraries. And there’s no better time to round them up than October, which is National Book Month. So whether you’ll be nearby and can visit in person or you’d like to enjoy some virtual tours, take a look here and click on the links to learn more about these historic sites. They may inspire you to revisit a classic novel or favorite poem this month.
Edgar Allan Poe House
Baltimore
Info: Poe Baltimore
Gothic poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe spent a portion of his 20s in this Baltimore home, and historians believe he wrote several early stories and poems here. The house includes original artifacts such as his portable writing desk, as well as rotating exhibits. Poe Baltimore has an extensive list of other Poe sites to visit while in town, including the author’s gravesite.
Read more about this house
More Poe: Other former homes of Poe are also available for visits, including the Edgar Allan Poe National Historical Site in Philadelphia and his dorm room on the West Range at the University of Virginia.
Baltimore
Info: Poe Baltimore
Gothic poet and writer Edgar Allan Poe spent a portion of his 20s in this Baltimore home, and historians believe he wrote several early stories and poems here. The house includes original artifacts such as his portable writing desk, as well as rotating exhibits. Poe Baltimore has an extensive list of other Poe sites to visit while in town, including the author’s gravesite.
Read more about this house
More Poe: Other former homes of Poe are also available for visits, including the Edgar Allan Poe National Historical Site in Philadelphia and his dorm room on the West Range at the University of Virginia.
Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
Washington, D.C.
Info: Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
After escaping slavery, the renowned abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass became famous as an orator and a writer. After moving into his home, Cedar Hill in Washington, D.C., he wrote many speeches and articles as well as his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, sitting in this chair in this very room. Today the remarkable library is much as Douglass left it. The shelves are filled with nearly 1,000 books on history, science, government, law, religion and literature. And the walls are decorated with portraits of people Douglass admired, among them Joseph Cinque, who led the famed 1839 revolt on the Spanish slave ship La Amistad, and his friend and women’s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony.
Learn more about this house
Washington, D.C.
Info: Frederick Douglass National Historic Site
After escaping slavery, the renowned abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass became famous as an orator and a writer. After moving into his home, Cedar Hill in Washington, D.C., he wrote many speeches and articles as well as his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, sitting in this chair in this very room. Today the remarkable library is much as Douglass left it. The shelves are filled with nearly 1,000 books on history, science, government, law, religion and literature. And the walls are decorated with portraits of people Douglass admired, among them Joseph Cinque, who led the famed 1839 revolt on the Spanish slave ship La Amistad, and his friend and women’s rights advocate Susan B. Anthony.
Learn more about this house
The Wren’s Nest, Joel Chandler Harris’ Home
Atlanta
Info: The Wren’s Nest
Many tales of Brer Rabbit were written on the front porch of this Queen Anne Victorian house in Atlanta’s West End. Writer Joel Chandler Harris lived in the home, The Wren’s Nest, from 1881 to 1908. On Saturdays, tours that include storytelling are given.
Atlanta
Info: The Wren’s Nest
Many tales of Brer Rabbit were written on the front porch of this Queen Anne Victorian house in Atlanta’s West End. Writer Joel Chandler Harris lived in the home, The Wren’s Nest, from 1881 to 1908. On Saturdays, tours that include storytelling are given.
The Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum
Hannibal, Missouri
Info: Mark Twain Museum
Mark Twain lived in this home near the banks of the Mississippi as a tween and teen, and it served as the inspiration for Aunt Polly’s house in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Today the house is a museum furnished with period pieces.
More Twain: Also check out the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, where the author and his family lived from 1874 to 1891. Twain wrote many works there, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Hannibal, Missouri
Info: Mark Twain Museum
Mark Twain lived in this home near the banks of the Mississippi as a tween and teen, and it served as the inspiration for Aunt Polly’s house in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Today the house is a museum furnished with period pieces.
More Twain: Also check out the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, where the author and his family lived from 1874 to 1891. Twain wrote many works there, including The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.
Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum
Mansfield, Missouri
Info: Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum
At age 27, Laura Ingalls Wilder left the little town on the prairie she later made so famous in her books and moved to Mansfield, Missouri, with her husband, Almanzo. After developing and enlarging their property, Rocky Ridge Farm for 19 years, they built this lovely farmhouse underneath the oak trees. It was here that the budding author kept farm journals and eventually launched her writing career, first as a journalist and later as a novelist. She died here in 1957 at the age of 90.
Learn more about this house
Your turn: Have you visited the historic home of a prominent writer? Please share your experience in the Comments.
More on Houzz
Read more stories about historic homes
Find an architect with a specialty in historic building conservation
Mansfield, Missouri
Info: Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Home and Museum
At age 27, Laura Ingalls Wilder left the little town on the prairie she later made so famous in her books and moved to Mansfield, Missouri, with her husband, Almanzo. After developing and enlarging their property, Rocky Ridge Farm for 19 years, they built this lovely farmhouse underneath the oak trees. It was here that the budding author kept farm journals and eventually launched her writing career, first as a journalist and later as a novelist. She died here in 1957 at the age of 90.
Learn more about this house
Your turn: Have you visited the historic home of a prominent writer? Please share your experience in the Comments.
More on Houzz
Read more stories about historic homes
Find an architect with a specialty in historic building conservation
Lenox, Massachusetts
Info: The Mount
Edith Wharton was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize, for her novel The Age of Innocence. But she also wrote several books about decorating and garden design. She put her theories into practice at The Mount, this glorious home in Massachusetts, referring to it as “an autobiographical house.” In the 10 years she spent here, she wrote many books, including The House of Mirth and Ethan Frome.
The relationship between a house, its gardens and the greater landscape around it was of great importance to Wharton, who worked on the landscape design with her niece Beatrix Farrand, one of the premiere landscape architects in American history and the only female founder of the American Society of Landscape Architects. She designed many prominent landscapes, including Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., and the gardens and surrounding landscape at The Mount are extraordinary.
Learn more about this house
Learn more about the gardens