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What if your dream of country peace begins with an abandoned farm and a great deal of work?
In Dwellers in Arcady, Albert Bigelow Paine explores the joys and struggles of bringing an abandoned New England farm back to life. The longing is simple: leave the city behind and make a home on the land. But old buildings and rough fields ask for more than a love of quiet.
The title points to Arcadia, the poetic dream of a simple, happy country life. Paine brings that dream close to the daily labor it requires. Seasons set the pace, while neighbors bring knowledge of weather, roads and local stories. The pleasure lies in seeing rural hope meet the patient work of making a home.
What you’ll discover
- The country dream Explore the longing for fields, trees and quiet beyond the crowded streets of the city.
- A farm awaiting care Meet an abandoned place whose promise comes with the demands of patient restoration.
- Life by the seasons Follow planting, growth, harvest and winter quiet as the year shapes country life.
- Neighbors who know Find the human side of the landscape through neighbors and their knowledge of the district.
- Pleasure beside hard work Enjoy warm, plain writing about the gap between rural dreams and daily effort.
Who will love it
This book suits anyone who dreams of an old house in the country, loves gardens and trout streams, and enjoys gentle humor and small-town characters.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- A home begins in the imagination
- The attic holds other lives
- Neighbors make the farm livable
- Staying means making room for compromise
- Old accounts reveal vanished neighbors
- The seasons give home its rhythm
- Farm plans need room for laughter
- A growing family changes its home
- Caring for a house creates belonging
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Dwellers in Arcady
by Albert Bigelow Paine · 1917
A couple buy thirty-one acres, a brook and an attic full of relics for nine hundred dollars.
Medium level2–5 hours to read20 languages
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“All my life I had dreamed of owning a brook.”
In short
What would you do if a man handed you a key to a two-hundred-year-old house, a trout brook and an attic full of spinning wheels, all for less than a thousand dollars? Albert Bigelow Paine and his wife Elizabeth said yes, and this book tells what happened next.
Dwellers in Arcady at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 50 min2 h 15 min fast, 3 h 25 min slow
- Length
- 40,500 words
- Library level
- Medium longer sentences, everyday words
- First published
- 1917by Albert Bigelow Paine
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
A Brook and a Haunted-Looking House
The book opens on a summer day. The author and his wife Elizabeth ride in a wagon toward Brook Ridge. Just below the hilltop a trace breaks, and while the driver borrows string, they look at a sagging wreck of a house and wonder whether theirs will look the same.
A man named William C. Westbury meets them by a mill. He mentions that a little cascade in the field is the brook that runs through their farm. The author asks about trout and hears that this is the best trout brook in the township. Thirty-one acres are on offer, with meadow, timber and an orchard.
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Details
- First published
- 1917
- Language
- English
- Reading time
- 3 h 15 min
- Level
- Medium level
Cite this edition
Paine, Albert Bigelow. Dwellers in Arcady. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/dwellers-in-arcady.
Paine, A. B. (2026). Dwellers in Arcady. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dwellers-in-arcady (Original work published 1917)
Paine, Albert Bigelow. Dwellers in Arcady. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dwellers-in-arcady.
@book{paine2026dwellers,
author = {Paine, Albert Bigelow},
title = {Dwellers in Arcady},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/dwellers-in-arcady},
note = {First published 1917}
}
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What is Dwellers in Arcady about?
It tells how Albert Bigelow Paine, his wife Elizabeth and their three daughters buy and restore an abandoned farm at Brook Ridge, Connecticut, with its brook, old house and attic, and follow the first year's seasons and work.
Is Dwellers in Arcady a true story?
Yes, it is a memoir drawn from the author's own years on a New England farm. He wrote it about a dozen years after buying the place, and it changes some names, calling his daughters Pride, Hope and Joy.
Who is William C. Westbury in the book?
Westbury is the neighbor who sells the family the farm. He knows every family and horse in the township, finds their workmen, brings supplies from town and tells long stories while whittling by the fire.
The author
Albert Bigelow Paine
1861–1937 · American writer and biographer
Albert Bigelow Paine (1861–1937) was an American writer and biographer. He was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and died in New Smyrna, Florida. He wrote fiction, children’s books, and biographies. His three-volume biography of Mark Twain appeared in 1912. He also edited collections of Twain’s letters and other writings.
“All my life I had dreamed of owning a brook.”
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