Hawthorne Revisited: Honoring the Bicentennial of the Author's Birth

by Auchincloss, Louis; Auster, Paul; Butters, Laura L.; Fromm, M. Gerard; Garrett, Wendell; Gilligan, Carol; Gilmore, Michael T.

• ISBN13: 9781584653745
• ISBN10: 1584653744
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2004-03-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of New England

Summary

Two hundred years after his birth, Nathaniel Hawthorne remains one of America's most important and influential writers. To celebrate that bicentennial, this new collection gathers essays by novelists, critics, historians, and biographers that explore aspects of Hawthorne's life and work. It is published by the Lenox Library in Lenox, Massachusetts, the Berkshire town where Hawthorne spent two productive years and where he formed his friendship with Herman Melville. The writers and subjects here range from Louis Auchincloss and Elizabeth Hardwick on The Scarlet Letter to Paul Auster on Hawthorne's journals and what they reveal about his family life; from Harrison Hayford's previously unpublished exploration of Hawthorne's influence on Melville to Carol Gilligan's experiences adapting Hawthorne's work for the stage; from Wendell Garrett's evocation of nineteenth-century Salem to a sample of Hawthorne's own journalism--"Chiefly About War Matters by a Peaceable Man," written for The Atlantic Monthly in 1862. Also in these essays, curators of Hawthorne historical sites explore the influence of physical environment on the writer; biographer Brenda Wineapple examines the author's political views, including his controversial disdain of abolitionists; journalist and novelist Tom Wicker offers an appraisal of Hawthorne's skills as a war correspondent; and journalist Neil Hickey considers the author's ongoing cultural influence through film and television adaptations of his work. The heavily illustrated volume will also feature a range of visual materials, including original, full-page silhouettes in a nineteenth century style by Scherenschnitte (papercutting) artist Pamela Dalton.

Author Biography

DAVID SCRIBNER is editor of the Berkshire Eagle. Designed by JANE MCWHORTER, Project Director and Executive Editor, GORDON HYATT.

Table of Contents

Preface	9	(11)
Introduction	11	(10)
Gordon Hyatt
HISTORY
Hawthorne at Home	21	(10)
Paul Auster
Nineteenth-Century Salem	31	(8)
Wendell Garrett
The Peabody Sisters of Salem	39	(10)
Peggy Strong
Henry David Thoreau, Hawthorne's Concord Gardener	49	(6)
Laura L. Butters
The Novel and The House of the Seven Gables	55	(10)
Alexandria Mason
CRITICISM
The Scarlet Letter	65	(4)
Louis Auchincloss
Seduction and Betrayal	69	(6)
Elizabeth Hardwick
What Hawthorne Meant to Melville	75	(8)
Harrison Hayford
Hershel Parker
A Moonlight Visibility: Turning The Scarlet Letter into a Play	83	(10)
Carol Gilligan
The Scarlet Letter: Movies and Television	93	(6)
Neil Hickey
Dimmesdale's Ailment, Hawthorne's Insight	99	(14)
M. Gerard Fromm
Dido's Curse: Hawthorne's Unwilling Radicalism	113	(6)
Michael T. Gilmore
A Heap of Broken Fragments: Hawthorne and Politics	119	(8)
Brenda Wineapple
Chiefly About War Matters by a Peaceable Man	127	(34)
Nathaniel Hawthorne
Hawthorne as War Correspondent	161	(8)
Tom Wicker
Afterword	169	(4)
Contributors	173