Westminster Abbey

While in London, I got to visit Westminster Abbey twice - once for a tour, and one for a service. Both were wonderful. If you haven't been to Westminster, anything I told you about its magnificence still wouldn't do it justice, so just take my word for it. Of particular interest to me here was the Poets' Corner, where over 100 writers are buried and/or celebrated. I was most interested in seeing the Williams (Shakespeare, Blake and Wordsworth), Chaucer, Burns, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, Austen, Byron, Dickens, Lewis Carroll, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Robert and Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Henry James. It was really overwhelming to see so many important literary contributors all mentioned together. Luckily, I had been able to study up on everything before my visit, thanks to a book Teresa bought for me on the Poets' Corner during her London trip three years ago. What fun!  

James and Wharton

Recently I've enjoyed rereading Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton and Daisy Miller by Henry James. Just over a year ago, I visited Asheville, NC, and the Biltmore House with my family, and I was fascinated to read in Literary Trails of the North Carolina Mountains: A Guidebook that both Wharton and James were friends of the Vanderbilts and visited them at their mountain home. The Biltmore House is so over the top with rooms much bigger than my entire house, rich furnishings and a view to die for. It made me imagine what it was really like to get invited to visit them in the lap of luxury. Considering this, it was interesting to imagine Wharton and James writing their novels about those in a similar lifestyle to the Vanderbilts, and living this kind of lifestyle themselves. After reading these two books, I watched both the movies of Age of Innocence and Daisy Miller, as well as The House of Mirth, a movie based on another Wharton novel. Click here to review my post on the Biltmore House.