Step into a time capsule and explore the flora, fauna, and fishermen of the Isles of Shoals. Originally published in 1873, this book is a firsthand account of shipwrecks, storms, and simple lives 10 miles off the coast of New England. Celia Thaxter was a poet, artist, and noted gardener who spent much of her life on White, Smuttynose, and Appledore islands.She made the acquaintance of such luminous contemporaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Childe Hassam, William Wadsworth Longfellow, and Nathaniel Hawthorne. This book shines with attention to the smallest detail as Thaxter watches the seasons...

Celia Laighton Thaxter was born in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on June 29th, 1835 and spent her childhood years on the Isles of Shoals, initially on White Island, where her father, Thomas Laighton, was a lighthouse keeper, and then the wonderfully named Smuttynose and Appledore Islands. At sixteen, she married Levi Thaxter, her father's business partner, and moved to the mainland, residing first in Watertown, Massachusetts, at a property his father owned. In 1854, they moved to a house in Newburyport and later, in 1856, acquired their own home near the Charles River at Newtonville. Celia had...

"Celia Laighton Thaxter (1835-1894) was born in Portsmouth, NH. When she was four, her father became the lighthouse keeper on White Island in the Isles of Shoals. After resigning his post eight years later, he built a resort hotel on Appledore Island in Maine. The first of its kind on the New England coast, the hotel became a gathering place for writers and artists during the latter half of the 19th century. In her last year of life, Celia published this work, in which she lovingly describes her Appledore garden and its flowers. The flowers she grew in her cutting garden filled her own rooms...