Abstract:LLUSTRATIONS IN BOOKS on Hawthorne tend to feature his famous residences-most notably, the Manning house on Herbert Street in Salem where he passed his twelve years of obscurity, the Old Manse which h...LLUSTRATIONS IN BOOKS on Hawthorne tend to feature his famous residences-most notably, the Manning house on Herbert Street in Salem where he passed his twelve years of obscurity, the Old Manse which he occupied during the first years of his marriage to Sophia, the Salem Custom-House where he worked just prior to the writing of The Scarlet Letter, and the Wayside in Concord where he spent the last four years of his life. For many of Hawthorne's readers, the curious author behind his strange tales and romances has been better revealed in the places where he lived and worked than in his few existing portraits. In his Homes of American Authors (I853), William Curtis devoted a chapter to describing the Wayside where the Hawthornes were then living. While his remarks never rose above the level of the genteel audience to which they were addressed, his approach to his material was conceived in terms of a widespread belief Hawthorne himself shared, that a knowledge of an author's immediate environment enriched one's appreciation of his writings. I understand his romances the better for having seen his house; and his house the better, for having read his romances, Hawthorne wrote following his visit to Walter Scott's home at Abbotsford. They throw light on one another.1 Whether or not Curtis was familiar with A. J. Downing's recently published The Architecture of Country Houses, he, along with Hawthorne and his readers, would have agreed with Downing's assertion that much of the character of every man may be read in his house.2 As a building, such a place presented a structured enclosure which brought its owner into a distinctive relationship with space, time, and society. As a home, it represented the potential for familial happiness and domestic tranquillity as well as providing a cherished refugeRead More
Publication Year: 1976
Publication Date: 1976-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 3
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