A World of Light: Portraits and Celebrations

by May Sarton

Book Overview

May Sarton's celebrations in this book center around the friendships that flowered in her life from age twenty-six to age forty-five--between the end of I Knew a Phoenix and the beginning of Plant Dreaming Deep. Her subjects include her father, the noted science historian George Sarton; people in the arts--Elizabeth Bowen, Louise Brogan, Jean Dominique; and people who lived lives remote from the center--Marc, the vigneron of Satigny, in the foothills...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393305007
• ISBN13: 9780393305005
• Release Date: April 1988
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 254 Pages
• Weight: 0.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.9" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Joyful recollections

May Sarton was an only child. The family lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father was absorbed in his work. The author's father, George Sarton, wrote a history of science. He spent his Saturday afternoons at the Museum of Fine Arts. He founded and edited a scholarly journal, ISIS, for forty years. He had a poor relationship with Harvard University, he had been unpaid or ill-paid for years, but a good relationship with the staff of Widener Library. He read THE NEW YORKER with intense interest. His first ambition had been to become a poet and novelist. Mabel Sarton, the author's mother, was an early-morning person. In essence she was an artist. She ws born near London. Her father worked as an engineer in India. After her father died she worked as a designer at an interior decorating firm, La Maison Dangotte. The city of Ghent was a ferment of political and artistic life. When May Sarton's mother was over thirty, the couple moved to the United States. The life-giving group she had found in Belgium was never replaced. The family, now three, settled in Cambridge in 1918. May attended the Shady Hill School there. Elizabeth Bowen entered fully into relationships with others. She seemed to be more absent-minded at Bowen Court in Ireland than she was in England. Edith Forbes Kennedy did some work at Shady Hill in order to gain tuition breaks for her sons' schooling. Conversation for her was important, really rising to the level of art. S.S. Koteliansky was responsible for the publication of May Sarton's first book. He told the Huxleys she had some glimmerings of talent. Louise Bogan was a true poet. She lived with a minimum of comfort. Other portraits include a Swiss winemaker and the granddaughter of a Harvard President. Love and respect are conveyed. One discerns in these pieces some of the models for Sarton's fictional creations.