Hawthorne in Concord

Rating:
Summary: a powerful survey of not just one man, but his entire circle
Review: Hawthorne In Concord is no light reading biographical sketch, but a substantial, informative, and superbly presented in-depth account of the great American man of letters, Nathaniel Hawthorne, considering both his literary contribution and his influence on Concord's community of philosophers, poets, reformers and intellectuals as a whole. Equally intriguing, Hawthorne In Concord places Hawthorne's experiences within his circle of most notable companions, from Emerson and Thoreau to Mann and the Alcotts, making Hawthorne In Concord a powerful survey of not just one man, but his entire circle.


Rating:
Summary: More than Hawthorne AND more than Concord
Review: Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864) and his wife Sophia Peabody Hawthorne spent a total of just eight years of married life in Concord, Massachusetts. Those years were spread out over three decades. Yet the couple's extended familial and social circles included many names known to Concordians then and to us today: the Emersons, Alcotts, Stowes and Peabodys; Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Horace Mann, Horace Greeley, Ellery Channing, William Dean Howells, Samuel Hoar, and Nathan Appleton; publishers James Fields and William Ticknor; and Nathaniel's college friends, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and Franklin Pierce. The Hawthornes were in the thick of the 19th-century New England literary life that had Concord at its very center. Their residency can thus be used as a focal point to study the time and its place in history.

While this book attempts to do just that, it delves into more lives than just the Hawthornes (as noted above) and travels as far away as Italy. It follows tangents to their end but always eventually returns to Nathaniel and Sophia and to their two Concord homes, the Old Manse and the Wayside. The details of the pair's devotion and amazing romance may surprise those readers who remember only the dark themes of short stories read in high school English class. It's difficult to fathom that the same pen that wrote "Young Goodman Brown" and "The Minister's Black Veil" also wrote adoring love letters to his Dove.

I found the writing style a bit unnerving to follow, as the narrative overlaps itself and doesn't always follow strict chronological order. Nevertheless, this book should prove of interest to anyone who enjoys the transcendental period of American literature and history. For a full biography of Hawthorne, look elsewhere.