Description

The city of Cambridge has been highly literate since the foundation of Harvard in 1636. With almost 400 years of graduates loafing around Cambridge after school, the sheer quantity of literary history here is astonishing.

The first printing press in British North America would print the Bay Psalm Book, the continent’s first publication. Harvard boasts a collection of roughly 17 million books. From the powerhouse celebrity Henry Wadsworth Longfellow to the author of Curious George, Harvard Square has an incredible history of printing, storytelling, and poetry. Walk the back roads of Harvard Square and Brattle Street and relive the evolution of reading and writing in one of the nation’s most literate cities.

Highlights

Harvard Coop

Site of British America’s First Printing Press

Harvard Lampoon

Harvard Crimson

Grolier’s Poetry Shop

Widener Memorial Library

Stoughton and Hollis Halls

Charles Sumner Statue

Brattle House

Village Blacksmith

HA Rey House

T.S. Eliot Residence
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow House

Details

• $150 booking minimum covers up to 10 guests for up to 90 minutes. 
• For larger groups or customized tours, please contact us.
• ​This tour can be delivered in Corporate attire, Colonial Period dress, or Victorian-era Dress, as requested.

Add-ons

• The Longfellow House/Washington’s Headquarters Site is a Nation Park Service Site, and free tours are offered in the summer. We are happy to build in time for one of these tours, or to drop you off to take one for yourself.

• We are happy to build in time to shop for books, or to send a reading list of the works mentioned on our tours. Please contact us for more on that.

• We love to add on additional readings of works by each author mentioned on our tour. Please contact us if you’d like specific works read aloud during the tour by our professional staff of performers.

We Can't...

• ​Please note that this is a specialty tour and subject to availability. Not all of our guides know/are able to deliver this tour at the quality and knowledge level we require of our staff. Thanks for understanding.
  
• Many of the ‘Houses' mentioned are private houses or institutions and may not be entered.