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

The Ascent To Fame of Nathaniel Hawthorne  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚      The advent of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s recognition by the public as a literary master was long in coming and was not based mainly on the merits of his tales like â€Å"The Minister’s Black Veil.† Henry James in his biography Hawthorne from 1879 testifies in eloquent fashion to the state of Hawthorne’s reputation in the 1830’s as a writer: I have said that in the United States at present authorship is a pedestal, and literature is the fashion; but Hawthorne's 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 â€Å"The Minister’s 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 works 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 lady retained a very favourable recollection of the work, which her brother had given 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. There is probably something autobiographic in the striking little tale of â€Å"The Devil in Manuscript.† "They have been offered to seventeen publishers," says the hero of that sketch in regard to a pile of his own lucubrations (chap. 2) The Norton Anthology: American Literature states that â€Å"he was agonizingly slow in winning acclaim† (547). Edgar Allen Poe, in a review of Hawthorne’s work, said in Godey's Lady's Book, November, 1847, no. 35, pp. 252-6: It was never the fashion (until lately) to speak of him in any summary of our best authors. . . . The "peculiarity" or sameness, or monotone of Hawthorne, would, in its mere character of "peculiarity," and without reference to what is the peculiarity, suffice to deprive 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 worst of all possible points--at that point which, having the least concern with Nature, is the farthest removed from the popular intellect, from the popular sentiment and from the popular taste.