Nathaniel Hawthorne Collection

This collection contains accessions of single manuscripts and small groups of manuscripts and other papers, by or related to Nathaniel Hawthorne, acquired by the library from a variety of sources. The collection contains letters, manuscripts, personal papers, photographs, and objects, and spans the years 1800-1919.

The collection is housed in four boxes and organized into three series according to provenance: Owen Franklin Aldis Gift, Norman Holmes Pearson Gift, and Material from Other Sources. Boxes 3 and 4 contain Oversize and Restricted Fragile material respectively.

Series I, Owen Franklin Aldis Gift , housed in box 1, is organized into three small subseries: Correspondence, Writings, and Other Papers. The correspondence consists of several outgoing letters from Hawthorne to others, including the Reverend George Ripley of Brook Farm and the publisher Ticknor and Fields. Letters to Ticknor and Fields concern, among other subjects, the acquisition of books and the publication of a biography. There is also one third party letter from Hawthorne's son Julian to Benjamin H. Ticknor. Writings consists of a corrected and bound holograph manuscript of Hawthorne's "Doctor Grimshawe's Secret" in the hand of Julian Hawthorne. Other Papers include two certificates and a check signed by Hawthorne.

Series II, Norman Holmes Pearson Gift , housed in boxes 1-2, is organized into three subseries: Correspondence, Writings, and Other Material. The Correspondence subseries is subdivided for outgoing, incoming, and third party correspondence. Hawthorne's outgoing correspondence dates from 1845-1863 and includes both personal and business correspondence. There is business correspondence dating from Hawthorne's service as surveyor for the port of Salem, to James Miller, and from his service as consul at Liverpool. In the latter case, there are letters dating from the mid 1850s to English merchants Francis Bennoch and Henry Arthur Bright. Other noteworthy correspondents include Delia Bacon, Hawthorne's daughter Una, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Franklin Pierce, the sculptor Hiram Powers, and Charles Sumner. The brief ALS to Delia Bacon, dated October 6, 1856, mentions publication of her work, presumably her controversial Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded (1857).

Incoming correspondence consists predominantly of letters from literary acquaintances, including Mary Howitt, Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, Herman Melville, Donald Grant Mitchell, and William Wetmore Story. There are also letters from Rufus Choate and Robert Winthrop. In addition to correspondence from family members, including two folders of letters from Elizabeth to Una Hawthorne, dating from 1870-1876, there are single letters from Samuel T. Pickard and Thomas Buchanan Read in Third Party Correspondence.

The Writings subseries includes several pieces of writing by Hawthorne and one holograph manuscript by Franklin Pierce. The Hawthorne material consists of three holograph fragments, two excerpts in Hawthorne's hand, and a corrected holograph manuscript, entitled "Autumnal Characteristics," of reflections on life and activities outdoors. Pierce's undated essay, "Influence of Essay Writing on Taste," explores the merits of the essay, as a literary form, on matters of taste and morals in both England and America, with reference to the English writers Steele, Addison, and Shaftesbury.

Other Material includes printed ephemera, Hawthorne signatures, a plaster representation of Hawthorne, and a commission for an armed ship named the Herald, signed by President John Adams and dated 1800, which identifies Hawthorne as one of the ship's lieutenants.

Some Pearson gift material, primarily correspondence and manuscripts, is accompanied by vendor documentation such as correspondence, invoices, receipts, descriptions, transcriptions, wrappers and folders.

Series III, Material from Other Sources , is organized into subseries for Correspondence and Other Material. There are letters from Hawthorne to William Fowler and Horace Mann, as well as two engravings of Hawthorne.

Oversize material, housed in box 3, contains material from Series II-III. Restricted Fragile Papers are housed in box 4.