Lane met Alcott at Alcott House, Ham Common, England, where Lane was working with James Pierrepont Greaves, another English Transcendentalist and student of Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi. Greaves strongly influenced Lane's thinking, especially his advocacy of vegetarianism and celibacy. Both Greaves and Lane had had unhappy marriages; Lane had separated from his wife and endured three years of litigation to settle the situation. Having heard about Alcott from Harriet Martineau and then reading his works, Greaves had been so impressed that in 1838 he founded Alcott House as a collective association and school based on Alcott's educational ideas. Lane was one of the main forces in the enterprise.
When, with Ralph Waldo Emerson's help, Alcott came to visit Alcott House just after the death of Greaves in 1842, Lane was attracted by Alcott's ideas, spirit, and optimism about forming a New Eden and proclaiming the Newness in the freer society of the United States. Lane decided to return to Concord with Alcott. Despite Emerson's admonition that Alcott might have exaggerated the prospects of establishing a Utopian community, Lane and Henry Gardiner Wright, a teacher at Alcott House, left for the United States, bringing with them a significant library.
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