The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne

The three earliest settlements on the New England coast were Plymouth, Boston, and Salem; but Boston soon proved its superior advantages to the two others, not only from its mor...

Salem treasures the memory of Hawthorne, and preserves everything tangible relating to him. The house in which he was born, No. 27 Union Street, is in much the same style and pr...

The life of man is not like a game of chess, in which the two players start upon equal terms and can deliberate sufficiently over every move; but more like whist, in which the c...

During the War of the American Revolution, the officers of the French fleet, which was stationed at Newport, invented a game of cards, called “Boston,” of which one peculiarity...

It was fortunate for Hawthorne that there was at this time a periodical in the United States, the _North American Review_, which was generally looked upon as an authority in lit...

Horatio Bridge’s dam was washed away in the spring of 1837, by a sudden and unprecedented rising of the Androscoggin River. Bridge was financially ruined, but like a brave and g...

Who can compute the amount of mischief that Fourier has done, and those well-meaning but inexperienced dreamers who have followed after him? A Fourth-of-July firecracker once co...

The Ripley house dates back to the times of Captain Daniel Hathorne, or even before him, and at Concord Fight the British left wing must have extended close to it. Old and unpai...

There is no evidence in the Hawthorne documents or publications to show exactly when the first edition of “Mosses from an Old Manse” made its appearance, and copies of it are no...

In May, 1845, Paymaster Bridge found himself again on the American coast. Meeting with Franklin Pierce in Boston, they agreed to go to Concord together, and look into Hawthorne’...

Frederick W. Loring, that bright young poet who was so soon lost to us, once remarked: “Appreciation is to the artist what sunshine is to flowers. He cannot expand without it.”...

Why Hawthorne returned to Concord in 1852 is more of a mystery than the suicide of Zenobia. Horace Mann also left Newton, to be President of Antioch College (and to die there in...

Hawthorne’s life in England was too generally monotonous to afford many salient points to his biographer. It was monotonous in his official duties, in his pleasure-trips, and in...

Hawthorne went to Italy as naturally as the salmon ascends the rivers in spring. His artistic instinct drew him thither as the original home of modern art and literature, and pe...

Nearly one-third of the Italian Note-book is devoted to the criticisms or descriptions of paintings, statues, and architecture, for which we can be only too thankful as coming f...

What the Roman carnival was a hundred and fifty years ago, when the Italian princes poured out their wealth upon it, and when it served as a medium for the communication of love...

There is no portion of Hawthorne’s life concerning which we know less than the four years after his return from England to his native land. He was so celebrated that every eye w...

In the autumn of 1862 there was great excitement in Massachusetts. President Lincoln had issued his premonitory proclamation of emancipation, and Harvard College was stirred to...