Remarkable Lidian
Lydia Jackson was born in Plymouth, MA on September 20, 1802, married Ralph Waldo Emerson on September 14, 1835—she for the first time, he for the second—and moved to Concord the next day. Readers interested in Lidian’s life and times may enjoy reading Randall Fuller’s recent title, Bright Circle: Five Remarkable Women in the Age of Transcendentalism (Oxford University Press, 2025). The book devotes a section each to Lidian and four of her intellectual peers: Mary Moody Emerson, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, and Margaret Fuller.
— R. Davis, Emerson House guide
Lidian Jackson Emerson received this hand-painted plate on her 77th birthday in 1879, a gift from her daughter-in-law Annie Shepard Keyes. Photo by R. Davis.
Randall Fuller’s group biography, Bright Circle, was released in January of this year and is available in the Emerson House bookshop.
