New England in Color (Profiles of America Ser.)

Text by Stewart Beach; Photographs by Samuel Chamberlain A new dimension is added to the perennial beauty of the scene by NEW ENGLAND IN COLOR, a volume in the Profiles of America Series. Now the historic houses, the tree-lined village streets, the rockbound coast and the harbors where the yachts and fishing fleets gather, are reproduced in the hues that nature gives them in spring, summer, fall and winter. Nature and man have cooperated to keep New England beautiful. Its poets have celebrated the play of sunlight on its hills; its painters have recorded its urban and rural aspects. Now the color film of Samuel Chamberlain adds its magic. Stewart Beach long has been familiar with the allurements of New Enland, both as a scholar delving into its past and as a traveler on its highways and byways. Here he describes traditions that live on in a modern setting. Here is the Lafayette House in Marblehead, so-called because a corner was sawed off to let Lafayette's carriage pass. Here is the silver shop of Old Deerfield, back on its original location. And here are the 'rude bridge that arched the flood' of Concord's most famous morning, and Munrow Tavern in Lexington where Earl Percy tarried. The sea is never far in New England. Here are the Gloucester fishing fleet; the whaler Charles W. Morgan, retired forever from active duty at Mystic Seaport, Connecticut; the harbor with cruise ships at Camden, Maine; the Piscataqua River and the Portsmouth Navy Yard. And the houses are rminders of legends and past affluence- the Wedding Cake House in Kennebunkport, the Langley-Boardman and Larkin-Rice in Portsmouth, the John Brown House in Providence, the House of Seven Gables in Salem, all seen in the sunlight and shadow of Chamberlain's color camera.