Lucid, ardent, and contemplative, May Sarton was one of America's best-loved writers. This comprehensive collection celebrated six decades of bold imagination and fifteen books of poetry, the creative output of a lifetime. Arranged chronologically, these poems reveal the full breadth of Sarton's creative vision. Themes include the search for an inward order, her passions, the natural world, self-knowledge, and in her latest poems, the trials of old age. Moving through Sarton's work, we see her at ease in both traditional forms and free verse, finding inspiration in snow over a dark sea, a cat's footfall on the stairs, an unexpected love affair. Here is the creative process itself, its sources, demands, and joys—a handbook of the modern poetic psyche.

Appearing in book form for the first time, this treasure trove of letters illuminates the life of the beloved poet/writer from early childhood into middle age.

All her life, May Sarton carried on a voluminous private correspondence—with family, friends, and lovers. From the beginning, as these remarkable letters show, the essence of an extraordinary human being was present, her gifts ready to unfurl and mature.

Fittingly, an early letter thanks parents for books. Later we enter the world of the theater, then years rich with study, travel, teaching, and the discipline of craft. Sarton's deep anguish as World War II approaches pervades many letters, but readers will also encounter the things that gave Sarton joy: her love of flowers, her affection for animals, her celebration of beauty in all its guises.

As Sarton divides her time between America and Europe, in an era when ocean voyages were the norm, illustrious acquaintances and intimates are introduced, among them Eva Le Gallienne, Elizabeth Bowen, Virginia Woolf, Muriel Rukeyser, Julian and Juliette Huxley, and Louise Bogan. Always, Sarton's voice is clear and courageous, startlingly candid about her passions, her moods, and her vulnerabilities. Her words, seeming as fresh as when they were written, stand against the backdrop of the crucial events of the century as she invites old and new readers into her personal world.

This enchanting story and classic of cat literature is drawn from the true adventures of Tom Jones, May Sarton s own cat. Prior to making the author s acquaintance, he is a fiercely independent, nameless Cat About Town. Growing tired of his vagabond lifestyle, however, he concludes that there might be some appeal in giving up his freedom for a home. Finally, a house materializes that does seem acceptable and so do the voices that inhabit it. It is here that he begins his transformation into a genuine Fur Person. Sarton s book is one of the most beloved stories ever written about the joys and tribulations inherent in sharing one s life with a cat. It is now reissued in a gorgeous edition featuring David Canright s beautiful illustrations."

May Sarton's ninth novel explores a woman's struggle to reconcile the claims of life and art, to transmute passion and pain into poetry. As it opens, Hilary Stevens, a renowned poet in her seventies, is talking with Mar, an intense young man who has sought her out and whose passionate despair reminds her of herself when young. Mar has had an unhappy love affair with a man. Bewildered by both his sexuality and his writing talent, he flings his anguish against Hilary s brusque, sympathetic intelligence."

"I am here alone for the first time in weeks," May Sarton begins this book, "to take up my 'real' life again at last.That is what is strange—that friends, even passionate love,are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is happening or what has happened." In this journal, she says, "I hope to break through into the rough, rocky depths,to the matrix itself. There is violence there and anger never resolved. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of whatwill happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there."

In this, her bestselling journal, May Sarton writes with keen observation and emotional courage of both inner and outer worlds:a garden, the seasons, daily life in New Hampshire, books, people, ideas—and throughout everything, her spiritual and artistic journey. In this book, we are closer to the marrow than ever before in May Sarton's writing.

"This journal is not only rich in the love of nature and the love of solitude. It is an honorable confession of the writer's faults, fears, sadness, and disappointments. . . . On the surface, Journal of a Solitude is a quiet book, but if you will read it carefully you will be aware of violent needs and a valiant warrior who has bettled every inch of the way to a share of serenity. This is a beautiful book, wise and warm within its solitude." —Eugenia Thornton, Cleveland Plain Dealer

Poems

In this collection, May Sarton takes on the subject of herself in old age. Here are her observations and reflections both on daily events and on the larger questions of life and death, the difficulties and rewards of living alone. Her many fans will find Sarton as celebratory and fresh as ever.

"May Sarton is still teaching us how to think about the events of our lives, and how to sing about them, too."—Marge Piercy

A Journal

May Sarton's eagerly awaited journals have recorded her life as a single, woman writer and, in later years, as a woman confronting old age. She completed this pilgrimage through her eighty-second year a few months before she died in 1995.

"Reporting from the front lines on the author's daily battle with a body and a mind that increasingly refuse to cooperate, At Eighty-Two captures this struggle with a simplicity, elegance and strength that is characteristic of its author and her lifetime of work."—Philadelphia City Paper

In these poems, May Sarton reflects on a journey undertaken to celebrate her fiftieth birthday, a journey that took her around the world to Greece via Japan and India, and finally home to the New Hampshire village where she had put down roots.

Ethereal and sensual, these intensely vivid poems capture the sights and textures of new places, people, and landscapes as experienced with a poet's fresh eye.

Harriet Hatfield begins a new life at the age of 60 after her lover of 30 years has died and left her comfortably well off. But when Harriet opens a bookstore for women in a blue-collar neighborhood of Boston, she is viciously attacked for her lesbianism. Ms. Sarton's powerful portrayal of the shy, reserved woman's battle becomes a moving statement about the place of the outsider in our world and the necessity of following the human heart. Dallas Morning News"

"The distinguished poet/essayist . . . describes poignantly the long, anxious days. . . . A lyrical, candid, sensitive spirit pervades this chronicle, which ends with Sarton well again, rejoicing in the present and putting the past behind her." —Publishers Weekly

"Remarkable . . . written with the honesty and the eye to personal and ambient detail we expect from [Sarton] and a new poignancy as physical frailty compounds the difficulties of creation." —Marge Piercy

"Always to read May Sarton's journal is like getting to talk to an explorer. What she explores, of course, is life itself. This last report, covering particularly rugged terrain, may be the best yet." —Noel Perrin

"[Sarton] has allowed us to share in all the adventures of her life and in doing so has enriched us beyond belief." —Eda Leshan, Newsday

"A book of transformative powers. As May Sarton's journal chronicles her battles for life and health, we learn about the complex layers of her courage . . . passionate, spontaneous, moving . . . revealing May Sarton to be one of the great spirits of our time."—Valerie Miner

"An amazing document of the will to survive, as all of May Sarton's journals have been in a sense, but here the road is steeper and the stakes so much higher. . . . Three cheers—no, three hundred—for May Sarton." —Susan Kennedy

A Journal

May Sarton's sixty-sixth year,1978–79, was a difficult time: a cherished relationship came to an end, she had a mastectomy, she fought against depression. How her friendships, her love of the natural world, and her growing audience of readers brought her back is this journal's story.

"Sarton's 'art of making exquisite distinctions' and her vulnerability as a human being are her timeless gifts to her readers." —Library Journal

May Sarton describes living at her eighteenth-century house in Nelson, New Hampshire—how she acquired it, how it and the garden became part of her.

"Sensitive, luminous. . . . Love is the genius of this small, but tender and often poignant, book by a woman of many insights." —Brooks Atkinson, New York Times Book Review

"A drama of self-integration. . . . An enlarging, enriching, and clarifying experience." —Boston Herald

This is the first journal Sarton wrote after she moved in 1973 from New Hampshire to the seacoast of Maine. Here she found the peace and aloneness she sought—and partly feared. The journal records the renewing of her life and work in this place.

"Beautifully wrought . . . deeply felt and significant in theme." —Saturday Review

This novel, first published in 1946, is one of May Sarton's earliest and, some critics think, one of her best. It takes place during the years between the world wars and explores the life of a Belgian family, the Duchesnes, and their mutual devotion which intensifies under the shadow of impending disaster.

Mélanie Duchesne, mother of three, is an active businesswoman, whose courage, energy, and optimism bind the family and its farm together. Paul, her husband, is a philosopher, detached, moody, continually embroiled in the spiritual conflicts of a crumbling Europe.

The last years before the second war are tense ones, a time for stock-taking, for a quickening of the pace of life. But it is Mélanie who encourages her family to proceed with their plans, to continue with their way of life. And it is Mélanie who decides their future as the Germans launch their invasion of Belgium.

Poems

In poems gathered into three sections under the titles "Letters from Maine," "A Winter Garland," and "Letters to Myself," Sarton's inspiration was a new, brief, and passionate love affair. The book celebrates that time, marks its passing, and opens up the poetic vision it left behind. The poems speak of the permanence of the memory of love and of the flowering it brings. They also draw on the rich, sometimes harsh, beauty of nature and its solace.

"A small, sophisticated, elegantly sentimental journey through a New Hampshire village summer. Our companions are an aging poet, who is sad because he can no longer write—he has lost the joy he used to have in simply being alive–and a young, mischievous female donkey, who is sad because she can't run and play—she has a touch of arthritis. . . . There is a moral, of course, but any moral looks dull next to the simple happiness of the old poet and his long-eared muse."—The New Yorker

"At long last in early June the Gordons were expected home at Dene's Court, the house in Ireland which Violet Dene Gordon had inherited." So begins May Sarton's evocative early novel about Violet Gordon's return, after thirty years, to her childhood home, where much had to be settled in one brief summer—fateful decisions about a marriage, a love affair, and a career. No influence was more important than the splendid old Dene's Court itself, and the memories it held.

May Sarton—poet, novelist, and chronicler—occupies a special place in American letters. This journal chronicles the year that began on May 3, 1982, her seventieth birthday. At her home in Maine, she savors "the experience of being alive in this beautiful place," reflecting on nature, friends, and work. "Why is it good to be old?" she was asked at one of her lectures. "Because," she said, "I am more myself than I have ever been."

"Sarton has fashioned her journals, 'sonatas' as she calls them, into a distinctive literary form: relaxed yet shapely, a silky weave of reflection, sensuous observation and record of her daily round, with the reader made companion to her inmost thoughts. . . . It's a book rich in warmth, perceptiveness and reassurance." —Publishers Weekly

"As ever, Sarton's journal entries provide a piquant immersion in the life of a graceful, astute writer and a gentle, vibrant woman. . . Sharing her responses to other authors is always enlightening, and her comments on her own poetry and fiction prove particularly edifying. Like Sarton's other journals . . . this gracious sharing of private moments, critical perceptions, and excitement over work-in-progress will find a deeply appreciative audience."—Booklist

This is the story of two poets, one an elderly Belgian woman known to the world as Jean Latour, the other a young Englishman. When Mark Taylor finds his life and art broken up by his love for an older, married woman, he turns for help to the poems of Jean Latour and finds the help he craves in the poet herself. In this early work we see the first flowering of May Sarton s special ability to depict sensitive people who find they must travel new pathways if they are to discover their true selves."

New and Uncollected Early Poems

"The title of [Sarton's] luminous new verse collection alludes to its underlying theme: old age. It's a time when she has 'more of everything to care for, to maintain.' Her powers of observation have deepened: a cat's footfall on the stairs 'speaks of an eternal Now.' In a beautifully simple language shorn of all artifice, she speaks directly and with wisdom about grief, lonliness, death, coming to terms with one's life."—Publishers Weekly

"Her complex ideas are born into verse with the easy, simple beauty that is typical of her stunning lyric style."—Boston Globe

A Novel

Grandfathers are generally produced by the birth of grandchildren. But Sprig Wyeth needed more than the arrival of his first grandchild to welcome that role. This is the story of the Wyeth family, set in Cambridge, Massachusetts (and in the summer, Maine): the very old, who are looking back; Spring and his wife Frances, who are finding their way in the midst of youthful hopes that refuse to fade away; and the young, embarking on adulthood, sometimes with anger. As Sprig struggles to reach past his reserve so that he can be there for his wife and children, and for a friend who needs him, the other characters likewise find their way to what self-fulfillment means.

"A serious novel of family relationships, particularly about the shifts and changes that occur in families in the middle years. . . . All of the Wyeths and their friends move and talk in that atmosphere of breadth and clarity which Sarton has made her own." —San Francisco Chronicle

"Shrewd and compassionate assessments. . . . Very good indeed." —Christian Science Monitor