Among the Isles of Shoals

In these lyrical sketches of the Isles of Shoals, Celia Thaxter turns a cluster of bleak granite outcrops into a place of haunting beauty, where sea, weather, and light continually remake the world. She guides readers through the islands' geography, names, reefs, tides, lighthouse, fishing grounds, and uncertain border between Maine and New Hampshire, while showing how their remoteness offers a strange freedom from worldly burdens. The shore is harsh yet mesmerizing: pebbled coves, kelp, wreckage, and sea-worn relics replace soft sand, and the surf sings differently from rock to rock, so clearly that islanders can navigate by ear in fog. Thaxter also celebrates the islands' unexpected abundance of wildflowers, garden blooms, and vivid plant life, even as she recalls the stripping away of trees and the marks of human use. Memory and history deepen the landscape through images of abandoned homes, graves, and the people who once lived there, while local legends and sailors' songs add rough humor. Fishing life, too, appears in all its labor, strangeness, and decline, as old methods fade and the sea's bounty grows uncertain, leaving beauty shadowed by loss. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.