Here are a few of the members of Sag Harbor's "Literary Roundtable," figuratively speaking.
Houses and other places associated with most of these writers are included in Anthony Garro's historical walking tour, held in conjunction with Sag Harbor's John Jermain Memorial Library and the Southampton Trails Preservation Society. For more information on this or upcoming literary tours, visit hike-li.com
Nelson Algren (1909-1981): Best known for his National Book Award-winning "The Man With the Golden Arm" (made into a film starring Frank Sinatra) and "Walk on the Wild Side," Algren was closely associated with Chicago, but spent the last few years of his life in Sag Harbor.
Lady Caroline Blackwood (1931-1996): Daughter of the heiress to the Guinness brewery fortune, Blackwood was better known for her high-profile love affairs (with, among others, poet Robert Lowell and Sigmund Freud's son Lucien) than her books. However, she was a first-rate writer and journalist. She moved to Sag Harbor in the last decade of her life.
James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851): Not yet known as a writer when he moved to Sag Harbor in 1819 and invested in a whaling ship, he found inspiration for several of his novels there, including "The Spy" (1821), his first successful work of fiction.
E.L. Doctorow (1931- ): The latest book by this historical novelist, "The March," was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. (Although he has a home in Sag Harbor, it is not a part of the literary tour. "We respect his privacy," says tour leader Anthony Garro.)
Percy Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957): A British-born novelist, painter, essayist, critic and poet (good enough to earn the admiration of both T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound), Wyndham Lewis lived in Sag Harbor in the 1940s.
John Steinbeck (1902-1968): Although many of his long litany of famous novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Grapes of Wrath," were set in his native California, Steinbeck lived and wrote in Sag Harbor from 1953 to 1968. The town was the starting point for his cross-country memoir, "Travels With Charley," and the setting for his last novel, "The Winter of Our Discontent."
George Sterling (1869-1926): Considered one of the best American poets of the early 20th century, Sterling was closely linked to California, where he spent most of his adult life (before committing suicide). But he was born in Sag Harbor and lived there until age 21.
Others with Sag Harbor connections include: Thomas Harris, above, author of "Silence of the Lambs" and other thrillers, who has a home here; "In Cold Blood" author Truman Capote, a frequent visitor; William Mulvihill, a Sag Harbor native whose novel "The Sands of the Kalahari" was made into a major motion picture in 1965; feminist leader and writer Betty Friedan; 19th-century philosopher and spiritualist Prentice Mulford; and David Frothingham, editor of Long Island's first newspaper.
