“That first weekend I established the dinner ritual. When I sat down at the table, there had to be flowers; there had to be a bottle of wine, and the table had to be set with care, as if by the finest servant. An open book to be devoured, the equivalent of civilized conversation for a solitary soul. Everything was prepared as if to receive a guest, and the guest of honor was going to be me.” In the 1950s, May Sarton bought an 18th-century farmhouse in Nelson, New Hampshire. She had always dreamed of the ideal home and a new life in it. A House of One’s Own is her memoir about how she first bought that house and about the first ten years she lived there: the joys and sorrows of gardening, the people who came to visit, and her daily routine as a writer. She also tells us about that intense and personal process of transforming a house into a home; painting the walls white to capture the light and searching for the precise shade of yellow for the kitchen. In this "living house" he discovers peace and beauty, works in the garden—an excellent metaphor for life outside it—and never stops writing. These are pages filled with beauty and illuminated by his reflections on friendship, love, nature, and his creative universe.