In 1973, May Sarton moved to a house on the seacoast of Maine. It was a place that was alone in all but a few months in the summer, with the sea and the woods, and a wide sky ever present. She discovered that what she has to give does not depend on others. This is her journal of that time....

A novel in the form of a diary, this story tells of Caroline Spencer, a 76-year-old retired schoolteacher who has suffered a heart attack and been deposited by relatives in an old people's home. Subjected to subtle humiliations and petty cruelties, she fights back with all she has, and in a powerful climax wins a terrible victory. "I shared the anger and the righteous indignation which I felt behind every line."--Madeleine L'Engle. Reissue....

May Sarton describes living at her eighteenth-century house in Nelson, New Hampshire—how she acquired it, how it and the garden became part of her. ....