Thank you for taking the time to photograph this lovely cemetery. I have loved looking at old cemeteries in thes south. If I ever get to Boston, and I hope I do, I will go to this beautiful spot.

I live less than a mile away, too, and yes, aren't we fortunate? I often take visitors there (sometimes local Bostonians who had no idea what they had been missing.)
Thanks for the reminder--and the excellent photos.

Thank you for this lovely, persuasive tour. I've never been, but am now determined to, even though those lilies of the valley have gone by. My husband grew up with a cemetery, aka sledding hill, behind his house, so is more prone to taking such sites with aplomb. Thus far my favorite cemetery is nearer to you than me. Sleepy Hollow in Concord MA has modest stones for the Alcott sisters and mother around a towering one for Bronson (no surprise there), a granite boulder for Emerson, and almost always wildflowers scattered near Thoreau's grave.

Speaking of literary connections to Mount Auburn, is it true that the place is honeycombed with hidden tunnels wherein nameless horrors shamble and lurk? All I know about Boston is what I read in H.P. Lovecraft...

Incredible. I have cemetery envy now, Alison! And you are so lucky to live in an area with such a rich past. Little and Brown! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow! And you are certainly not the only one to have a fascination with cemeteries. A few miles from my house, by a local university, is a very old cemetery. Most cemeteries near me are not as beautiful as this one- yours looks more like a park- but the quiet, subtle beauty is enough to endure the quizzical expressions and the sidelong glances. Lovely pictures, too! If you ever tire of being a bookseller, I think you could make a nice career out of photography.

I'll put in a word for Highgate Cemetery in London -- not the Eastern section (site of Karl Marx's grave), but the older Western section which is mostly very overgrown and is possibly the most perfectly Victorian-melancholy place I've ever been. Some of the tombs are listed as historic buildings, and there are gigantic holly trees said to have sprouted from clippings on the wreaths left on graves.

St Columba's Berkeley Memorial Chapel in Middletown,Rhode Island has a lovely cemetery on the grounds. Lots of the stones are carved locally by the John Stevens Shop. Several noteworthy people rest in peace there, though a few of them had such nice or valuable memorials that they have been stolen.

Thanks, all of you, for adding great stops to my future travels. Kevin, if I find an entrance to one of those tunnels I'll be sure to let you know! (Tunnel of Lovecraft... heh, heh) Becky, thanks so much for the compliment!

I recently bagpiped a memorial service there and I was stunned by the cemetery's beauty. A warning to those who would visit, however—take a map and compass; even a GPS won't help you find your way back out!

I had no idea a cemetery could be so beautiful, although I've always been fascinated with them. Visitors to Atlanta may want to tour Oakland Cemetery, which includes the grave of Margaret Mitchell along with numerous Confederate soldiers from the Civil War.

These are such wonderful photos! Seeing as you’re a fan of Mt. Auburn Cemetery and a photographer yourself, you’ll appreciate Deb Noyes’s forthcoming Encyclopedia of the End: Mysterious Death in Fact, Fancy, Folklore and More—which features many photos that Deb took in Mt. Auburn, as well as an entry that briefly discusses the cemetery’s history. Thanks for the post and pics!

What a great photo-tour. Thanks!

Thanks to Alison and all previous posters for the great pictures and information on Mount Auburn and other cemeteries. It's funny...personally I think cremation is a more sensible way to handle remains, once we "shuffle off". But by the same token, cemeteries are amazing places of beauty, history and reflection. We'd all be poorer without places like Mount Auburn, Highgate, or Mt. Lebanon & Mt. Carmel in Brooklyn.

Brian, I'm with you on the cremation point. And it's bolstered by a statistic I just read this morning in a very entertaining book called Geekspeak (Collins, September 2008)-- "We need the equivalent of 400 soccer fields to bury our dead each year." Still, I'm grateful that our forebears, in their burial excess, left such beauty behind as places like this!

When I worked at an education publisher across the street, my coworkers and I would go to the cemetery for lunchtime strolls. Not only did we once come across filming of "Gone, Baby, Gone" (complete with both Affleck bros. -- hello!), we also stumbled on a (free) tour of children's literature-related grave sites. The guide was very knowledgeable, and it might be worth seeing if the cemetery will offer that walk again. Eleanor Hodgman Porter is buried there, and apparently the cemetery is sponsoring a book club discussion in August on Pollyanna.

As a daughter of the South, we're very proud of our cemeteries. I plan to have my own patch in Richmond's historic and beautiful Hollywood Cemetery. Presidents Tyler and Monroe are buried there, as are Ellen Glasgow and James Branch Cabell. And, sadly, 18,000 Civil War soldiers.