author
MacGregor Jenkins
1869–1940
Best remembered for a warm, firsthand portrait of Emily Dickinson and for essays that celebrate books, reading, and country life, this New England writer brought a neighbor’s eye and a publisher’s sense of the literary world to his work. His writing feels personal, observant, and quietly affectionate.
1 Audiobook
Bucolic Beatitudes
by MacGregor Jenkins
About the author
Born in Amherst, Massachusetts, in 1869, MacGregor Jenkins was an American author and publisher. He graduated from Williams College and spent many years with Houghton Mifflin before continuing his literary work on his own.
Jenkins wrote about books and readers, but he also had a gift for intimate remembrance. His best-known book, Emily Dickinson: Friend and Neighbor (1930), grew out of his childhood proximity to the Dickinson family in Amherst and offers a rare, personal angle on the poet’s world.
He also published essays and books including The Reading Public, Literature with a Large L and Fellow Travelers, and Bucolic Beatitudes, showing his interest in literary culture as well as the quieter pleasures of rural life. He died in 1940.