Emerson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, F
by Ronald A. & Joel Bosco & Myerson
University of Iowa Press, 2003 Paper: 978-0-87745-842-5 | Cloth: 978-0-87745-841-8 | eISBN: 978-1-58729-432-7 Library of Congress Classification PS1631.E54 2003 Dewey Decimal Classification 814.3
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
ABOUT THIS BOOK
At his death, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) was universally acknowledged in America and England as “the Great Romancer.” Novels such as The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables and stories published in such collections as Twice-Told Tales continue to capture the minds and imaginations of readers and critics to this day. Harder to capture, however, were the character and personality of the man himself. So few of the essays that appeared in the two years after his death offered new insights into his life, art, and reputation that Hawthorne seemed fated to premature obscurity or, at least, permanent misrepresentation. This first collection of personal reminiscences by those who knew Hawthorne intimately or knew about him through reliable secondary sources rescues him from these confusions and provides the real human history behind the successful writer.
Remembrances from Elizabeth Peabody, Sophia Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Rebecca Harding Davis, and twenty others printed in Hawthorne in His Own Time follow him from his childhood in Salem, through his years of initial literary obscurity, his days in the Boston and Salem Custom Houses, his service as U.S. Consul to Liverpool and Manchester and his life in the Anglo-American communities at Rome and Florence, to his late years as the “Great Romancer.”
In their enlightening introduction, editors Ronald Bosco and Jillmarie Murphy assess the postmortem building of Hawthorne’s reputation as well as his relationship to the prominent Transcendentalists, spiritualists, Swedenborgians, and other personalities of his time. By clarifying the sentimental associations between Hawthorne’s writings and his actual personality and moving away from the critical review to the personal narrative, these artful and perceptive reminiscences tell the private and public story of a remarkable life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Ronald A. Bosco is Distinguished Professor of English and American Literature at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and General Editor for The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He is author or editor of many books, including Emerson in His Own Time (Iowa, 2003, with Joel Myerson). Jillmarie Murphy is professor of literature and writing at Schenectady County Community College.
REVIEWS
“Hawthorne in His Own Time is better than a biography: it provides canny first-hand accounts of an author often considered unknowable, along with key literary assessments of the era, allowing readers to sift through the evidence and form their own judgments. Students, scholars, and lovers of the Great Romancer’s work will all find much of value in this collection of gems.”—Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Photographs follow page 110
Introduction
Chronology
Amos Bronson Alcott, [A Visit to Emerson at Concord in 1837]
Convers Francis, [Remarks on Emerson in 1838, 1855, and 1858]
Ellis Gray Loring, [A Visit from Emerson in 1838]
[Annie Sawyer Downs], [Reminiscences of a Childhood in Concord in the 1840s]
Richard Frederick Fuller, “The Younger Generation in 1840 from the Diary of a New England Boy”
[Margaret Fuller], [At Concord with the Emersons in 1842]
Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle, [A Visit from Emerson in 1847]
Anonymous, “Emerson as a Lecturer” (1849)
Herman Melville, [Letter to Evert A. Duyckinck about Emerson as a Lecturer] (1849)
Fredrika Bremer, From The Homes of the New World; Impressions of America (1853)
[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn], “Mr. Emerson’s Lectures” (1864)
[George William Curtis], [Emerson as Seen from the “Editor’s Easy Chair” in 1865]
Anonymous, “Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1865)
James Russell Lowell, From My Study Windows (1871)
Bronson Alcott, “Fuller, Thoreau, Emerson…. The Substance of a ‘Conversation’” (1871)
Anna Alcott Pratt, Louisa May Alcott, and Ellen Tucker Emerson, [“House burned, Wednesday, 24 July (1872)”]
Anonymous, “Emerson: A Literary Interview” (1874)
Octavius Brooks Frothingham, From Transcendentalism in New England: A History (1876)
Walt Whitman, From Prose Works 1892 (1881-1882)
Ellen Tucker Emerson, [Emerson’s Death] (1882)
Louisa May Alcott, “Reminiscences of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1882)
Frederic Henry Hedge, [Reminiscences of Emerson] (1882)
[Edwin Percy Whipple], “Some Recollections of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1882)
Julia Ward Howe and Ednah Dow Cheney, From Concord Lectures on Philosophy… at the Concord School of Philosophy in 1882
A. B. Muzzey, From Reminiscences and Memorials of the Men of the Revolution and Their Families (1883)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, From Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884)
Pendleton King, “Notes of Conversations with Emerson” (1884)
[Annie Adams Fields], “Glimpses of Emerson” (1884)
Frank Bellew, “Recollections of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1884)
E. P. Peabody, “Emerson as Preacher” (1885)
Edward Waldo Emerson, Ellen Tucker Emerson, and Edith Emerson Forbes, [Emerson as Remembered by His Children] (1889 and 1897, 1902, 1921)
Charles J. Woodbury, From Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson (1890)
Francis Espinasse, From Literary Recollections and Sketches (1893)
William Henry Furness, “Random Reminiscences of Emerson” (1893)
W. J. Stillman, “The Philosophers’ Camp. Emerson, Agassiz, Lowell, and Others in the Adirondacks” (1893)
William Dean Howells, “My First Visit to New England” (1894)
Frank Preston Stearns, From Sketches from Concord and Appledore (1895)
Rebecca Harding Davis, “A Little Gossip” (1900)
John Muir, [Emerson in the Yosemite Valley] (1901)
William James and Caroline Hazard, From The Centenary of the Birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903)
Julian Hawthorne, “Personal Glimpses of Emerson” (1903)
Moncure D. Conway, “Emerson: The Teacher and the Man” (1903)
Daniel Chester French, “A Sculptor’s Reminiscences of Emerson” (1916)
Robert Underwood Johnson, From Remembered Yesterdays (1923)
Kate Douglas Wiggin, From My Garden of Memory: An Autobiography (1923)
Elizabeth Oakes Smith, “Recollections of Emerson, His Household and Friends” (1924)
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
Emerson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, F
by Ronald A. & Joel Bosco & Myerson
University of Iowa Press, 2003 Paper: 978-0-87745-842-5 Cloth: 978-0-87745-841-8 eISBN: 978-1-58729-432-7
At his death, Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864) was universally acknowledged in America and England as “the Great Romancer.” Novels such as The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables and stories published in such collections as Twice-Told Tales continue to capture the minds and imaginations of readers and critics to this day. Harder to capture, however, were the character and personality of the man himself. So few of the essays that appeared in the two years after his death offered new insights into his life, art, and reputation that Hawthorne seemed fated to premature obscurity or, at least, permanent misrepresentation. This first collection of personal reminiscences by those who knew Hawthorne intimately or knew about him through reliable secondary sources rescues him from these confusions and provides the real human history behind the successful writer.
Remembrances from Elizabeth Peabody, Sophia Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Bronson Alcott, Rebecca Harding Davis, and twenty others printed in Hawthorne in His Own Time follow him from his childhood in Salem, through his years of initial literary obscurity, his days in the Boston and Salem Custom Houses, his service as U.S. Consul to Liverpool and Manchester and his life in the Anglo-American communities at Rome and Florence, to his late years as the “Great Romancer.”
In their enlightening introduction, editors Ronald Bosco and Jillmarie Murphy assess the postmortem building of Hawthorne’s reputation as well as his relationship to the prominent Transcendentalists, spiritualists, Swedenborgians, and other personalities of his time. By clarifying the sentimental associations between Hawthorne’s writings and his actual personality and moving away from the critical review to the personal narrative, these artful and perceptive reminiscences tell the private and public story of a remarkable life.
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY
Ronald A. Bosco is Distinguished Professor of English and American Literature at the University at Albany, State University of New York, and General Editor for The Collected Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. He is author or editor of many books, including Emerson in His Own Time (Iowa, 2003, with Joel Myerson). Jillmarie Murphy is professor of literature and writing at Schenectady County Community College.
REVIEWS
“Hawthorne in His Own Time is better than a biography: it provides canny first-hand accounts of an author often considered unknowable, along with key literary assessments of the era, allowing readers to sift through the evidence and form their own judgments. Students, scholars, and lovers of the Great Romancer’s work will all find much of value in this collection of gems.”—Megan Marshall, author of The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Photographs follow page 110
Introduction
Chronology
Amos Bronson Alcott, [A Visit to Emerson at Concord in 1837]
Convers Francis, [Remarks on Emerson in 1838, 1855, and 1858]
Ellis Gray Loring, [A Visit from Emerson in 1838]
[Annie Sawyer Downs], [Reminiscences of a Childhood in Concord in the 1840s]
Richard Frederick Fuller, “The Younger Generation in 1840 from the Diary of a New England Boy”
[Margaret Fuller], [At Concord with the Emersons in 1842]
Jane Welsh Carlyle and Thomas Carlyle, [A Visit from Emerson in 1847]
Anonymous, “Emerson as a Lecturer” (1849)
Herman Melville, [Letter to Evert A. Duyckinck about Emerson as a Lecturer] (1849)
Fredrika Bremer, From The Homes of the New World; Impressions of America (1853)
[Franklin Benjamin Sanborn], “Mr. Emerson’s Lectures” (1864)
[George William Curtis], [Emerson as Seen from the “Editor’s Easy Chair” in 1865]
Anonymous, “Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1865)
James Russell Lowell, From My Study Windows (1871)
Bronson Alcott, “Fuller, Thoreau, Emerson…. The Substance of a ‘Conversation’” (1871)
Anna Alcott Pratt, Louisa May Alcott, and Ellen Tucker Emerson, [“House burned, Wednesday, 24 July (1872)”]
Anonymous, “Emerson: A Literary Interview” (1874)
Octavius Brooks Frothingham, From Transcendentalism in New England: A History (1876)
Walt Whitman, From Prose Works 1892 (1881-1882)
Ellen Tucker Emerson, [Emerson’s Death] (1882)
Louisa May Alcott, “Reminiscences of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1882)
Frederic Henry Hedge, [Reminiscences of Emerson] (1882)
[Edwin Percy Whipple], “Some Recollections of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1882)
Julia Ward Howe and Ednah Dow Cheney, From Concord Lectures on Philosophy… at the Concord School of Philosophy in 1882
A. B. Muzzey, From Reminiscences and Memorials of the Men of the Revolution and Their Families (1883)
Oliver Wendell Holmes, From Ralph Waldo Emerson (1884)
Pendleton King, “Notes of Conversations with Emerson” (1884)
[Annie Adams Fields], “Glimpses of Emerson” (1884)
Frank Bellew, “Recollections of Ralph Waldo Emerson” (1884)
E. P. Peabody, “Emerson as Preacher” (1885)
Edward Waldo Emerson, Ellen Tucker Emerson, and Edith Emerson Forbes, [Emerson as Remembered by His Children] (1889 and 1897, 1902, 1921)
Charles J. Woodbury, From Talks with Ralph Waldo Emerson (1890)
Francis Espinasse, From Literary Recollections and Sketches (1893)
William Henry Furness, “Random Reminiscences of Emerson” (1893)
W. J. Stillman, “The Philosophers’ Camp. Emerson, Agassiz, Lowell, and Others in the Adirondacks” (1893)
William Dean Howells, “My First Visit to New England” (1894)
Frank Preston Stearns, From Sketches from Concord and Appledore (1895)
Rebecca Harding Davis, “A Little Gossip” (1900)
John Muir, [Emerson in the Yosemite Valley] (1901)
William James and Caroline Hazard, From The Centenary of the Birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1903)
Julian Hawthorne, “Personal Glimpses of Emerson” (1903)
Moncure D. Conway, “Emerson: The Teacher and the Man” (1903)
Daniel Chester French, “A Sculptor’s Reminiscences of Emerson” (1916)
Robert Underwood Johnson, From Remembered Yesterdays (1923)
Kate Douglas Wiggin, From My Garden of Memory: An Autobiography (1923)
Elizabeth Oakes Smith, “Recollections of Emerson, His Household and Friends” (1924)
Index
REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE
If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you
with an electronic file for alternative access.
Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.
It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.
ABOUT THIS BOOK | AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY | REVIEWS | TOC | REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE