Flights of fancy

Symbol of an era, the tiny hummingbird fired the imaginations of 19th-century writers and artists

(KATHERINE STREETER)

By Michael Kammen

April 20, 2008

E-mail|
Reprints|

Text size – +

A Summer of Hummingbirds: Love, Art, and Scandal in the Intersecting Worlds of Emily Dickinson, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Martin Johnson Heade By Christopher Benfey Penguin, 287 pp., illustrated, $25.95 Strange as it may seem, during the decades spanning 1862 to 1882 especially, the hummingbird became a notable American icon, particularly among a tangled cluster of New England-based ... (Full article: 930 words)