The Ascent To Fame of Nathaniel Hawthorne :: Biography Biographies Essays

The Ascent To Fame of Nathaniel Hawthorne The advent of Nathaniel Hawthornes quotation by the public as a literary master was big in coming and was not based mainly on the merits of his tales interchangeable The Ministers Black Veil. Henry pile in his aliveness Hawthorne from 1879 testifies in eloquent fashion to the state of Hawthornes reputation in the 1830s as a writer I have utter that in the United States at present authorship is a pedestal, and lit is the fashion but Hawthornes history is a proof that it was possible, fifty years ago, to write a great many little masterpieces without becoming known. He begins the preface to the Twice-Told Tales includes The Ministers Black Veil by remarking that he was for many years the obscurest man of letters in America. (chap. 2) Later James records the difficulty which Hawthorne had to face at times in getting his workings published Mr. Lathrop learned from his surviving sister that after publishing Fanshawe he produced a group of short stories entitled Seven Tales of my Native Land, and that this madam retained a very favourable recollection of the work, which her brother had effrontery her to read. But it never saw the light his attempts to get it published were unsuccessful, and at last, in a fit of and despair, the young author burned the manuscript. in that respect is probably something autobiographic in the striking little tale of The fray in Manuscript. They have been offered to seventeen publishers, says the hero of that sketch in get word to a pile of his own lucubrations (chap. 2) The Norton Anthology American Literature states that he was torturously slow in winning acclaim (547). Edgar Allen Poe, in a review article of Hawthornes work, said in Godeys Ladys Book, November, 1847, no. 35, pp. 252-6 It was never the fashion (until lately) to utter of him in any summary of our best authors. . . . The peculiarity or sameness, or monotone of Hawthorne, would, in its mere character of peculiarit y, and without reference to what is the peculiarity, suffice to strip him of all chance of popular appreciation. But at his failure to be appreciated, we can, of course, no longer wonder, when we find him monotonous at decidedly the belabor of all possible points--at that point which, having the least concern with Nature, is the farthest upstage from the popular intellect, from the popular sentiment and from the popular taste.