Hawthorne

This year the pace of new book-length works has finally and understandably slackened from the number published in the extended wake of the Hawthorne bicentennial. Even so, several important topics of interest in Hawthorne studies remain represented in new critical essays: the contexts and sources of the author's work; his uses of history; and Hawthorne's engagement with U.S. identity and with the political and social issues of mid-19th-century America. A strong special edition of the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review focuses on forging a new perspective on Hawthorne's later works.

i. General

Hawthorne scholars will take special interest in "Ancestral Footsteps: Montégut on Monte-Beni" (RALS 32: 99-140), in which Michael Anesko and N. Christine Brookes argue that Henry James's biography of Hawthorne is "not altogether his own but rather a plagiaristic amalgam of insights" borrowed from the French philosopher Émile Montégut. The authors call for further consideration of how 19th-century French philosophers, including Montégut, Paul Emile-Daurand Forgues, and Louis Etienne dismantled Alexis de Tocqueville's earlier assertion that "Americans still have no literature." Anesko and Brookes include a translation of Montégut's 1860 essay on The Marble Faun and argue that scholars should familiarize themselves with its contents, if only to understand the extent to which James borrowed ideas from the essay when writing his own assessment of Hawthorne's significance.

Amanda Claybaugh's "The Consular Service and US Literature: Nathaniel Hawthorne Abroad" (Novel 42: 284-89) examines the "phenomenon of authors as consuls and ministers," pointing out that the positions reveal the 19th-century author's ties to politics, since the positions often were the result of writing a campaign biography, as was the case with Hawthorne, whose consulship at Liverpool followed his biography of Franklin Pierce. Perhaps more important, the positions afforded writers an opportunity to use their experiences abroad to reflect on the national identity emerging in the United States. Claybaugh argues that Hawthorne's travel abroad transformed the writer from a regional to a national author deeply interested in how national identity is "grounded in the customs and traditions" of a nation and its political structure.

David Cody, "Hawthorne as Burrower" (LitEAR 1: 169-96), begins by pointing out that Hawthorne scholars have long labored to uncover the sources for Hawthorne's tales, sketches, and romances. Cody adds to the volume of material on this topic by listing "additional and unknown sources" for over 250 items contained in the material Hawthorne wrote while serving as editor of the American Magazine of Useful and Entertaining Knowledge, as well as more than 30 entries explicating items from Hawthorne's notebooks. The article provides a useful look at Hawthorne's use of sources when writing magazine articles and also analyzes Hawthorne's relationship with Samuel Goodrich, who published many of Hawthorne's early tales and eventually offered him the editorship of the American Magazine. Noting that Goodrich and Hawthorne frequently wrote about similar topics in their publications, Cody suggests that the two writers frequently consulted, independently, similar sources. Cody also sketches the influence that William Hone, a British political satirist, may have had on Hawthorne. Cody acknowledges that it is unclear exactly when Hawthorne began reading Hone's work, which focused on English culture and history; however, Cody points out that Hawthorne's notebooks contain references to entries written by Hone. Using this information, Cody argues that Hawthorne's study of texts such as Hone's Every-Day Book provided the author with material that he later integrated into his own sketches and tales.

Pushing back against the threadbare notion that Hawthorne's last phase was one of atrophy and decline, Magnus Ullén and David Greven edit a special issue of Hawthorne's later works for the Nathaniel Hawthorne Review (NHR 35, ii). Their introductory essay to the issue, "Late Hawthorne: A Polemical Introduction" (pp. 1-25), offers an alternative way to read this final period of Hawthorne's creative life. The editors suggest it is easy to shift the "official" narrative in favor of one that reveals the writer...