A Study of Hawthorne

In Short

This critical study traces Nathaniel Hawthorne's development from his Salem childhood through his creative triumphs and final years. George Parsons Lathrop examines Hawthorne's heritage, college days, reclusive apprenticeship, and major romances to uncover the spiritual and intellectual origins of his art. Rather than offering a standard biography, Lathrop uses critical intuition and historical research to analyze how Hawthorne transformed Puritan history, personal isolation, and moral drama into enduring literature. The work remains vital for its deep contemporary insight into the nature of genius and the unique conditions that shaped nineteenth-century American letters.

The Story

Lathrop opens his investigation by establishing that his portrait relies on an inward sympathy and literary intuition rather than personal acquaintance with Hawthorne. He asserts that Hawthorne’s genius reflects the broader history of New England, making a deep retrospective into the region’s past essential to understanding the writer. The narrative then moves into Hawthorne’s ancestral background, tracing his lineage back to early Puritan figures like William Hathorne. Lathrop highlights how the severe, persecuting spirit of early Salem and the dark traditions of New England witchcraft provided a rich, earthy soil for a mind sensitive to moral terror and aesthetic beauty.

From these historical roots, the account transitions to Hawthorne's boyhood and youth. Lathrop recounts the author’s early reading habits—such as his childhood fondness for Spenser’s Faerie Queene—and describes significant formative events, including a foot injury that sidelined him in youth and the dramatic naval combat of the frigate Chesapeake off the Salem shore. Lathrop then follows Hawthorne to Bowdoin College, painting a picture of his friendships with Horatio Bridge and Franklin Pierce. He notes how Bridge intuitively predicted Hawthorne's literary destiny while the two friends spent idle hours wandering the woods and streams of Maine.

After college, the narrative enters Hawthorne's prolonged period of solitude in Salem. Lathrop detail's Hawthorne's intense isolation, his struggle with unsupportive publishers, and his extreme act of burning his early unpublished manuscript, Seven Tales of My Native Land. This quiet, secluded life under the eaves of the Herbert Street house allowed Hawthorne to refine his vision, resulting in Twice-Told Tales and his later residence at the Old Manse in Concord following his brief stay at Brook Farm.

Lathrop proceeds through the major literary works that followed, offering critical evaluations of The Scarlet Letter, The House of the Seven Gables, The Blithedale Romance, and The Marble Faun. He charts how real events—such as the tragic drowning of a young Concord woman—directly informed the dramatic climaxes of Hawthorne's fiction. Moving through Hawthorne’s diplomatic appointment in England and his eventual return to Concord, Lathrop evaluates the author's legacy, comparing his art to contemporaries like Edgar Allan Poe and Washington Irving. The study concludes with an analysis of Hawthorne's balanced character, asserting that his high sanity and deep artistic control distinguish him as a supreme master of American fiction.

How It Unfolds

The ancestral legacy Lathrop explores early Salem history and Hawthorne's ancestry, focusing on figures like William Hathorne and the lingering shadow of Puritan persecution. He demonstrates how the dark heritage and moral severity of early New England provided the essential atmosphere for Hawthorne's future imagination.

Youth and education The author examines Hawthorne's boyhood in Salem, his early exposure to classical literature, and his college years at Bowdoin. This phase emphasizes his intimate friendships with Franklin Pierce and Horatio Bridge, who early on recognized Hawthorne's potential as a fiction writer.

The reclusive apprenticeship Lathrop details Hawthorne's years of intense retreat in his Salem home, where he read widely, kept detailed journals, and struggled against publisher indifference. Out of this severe isolation came his early story collections and a matured, highly individualized creative voice.

The Concord idyll and major romances The study moves through Hawthorne's happy period at the Old Manse and his rise to literary prominence with The Scarlet Letter and subsequent novels. Lathrop links these masterpieces directly to real-life experiences and Hawthorne's ongoing engagement with Puritan history.

Critical legacy and character In the closing chapters, Lathrop compares Hawthorne to other literary figures of his era, analyzing his character design, artistic form, and personal sanity. He concludes that Hawthorne's balanced nature and profound moral vision elevate him above his contemporaries.

The People

• Nathaniel Hawthorne: The central subject, whose elusive personality and quiet genius Lathrop seeks to illuminate. He desires to create meaningful art despite publisher neglect and long years of solitary doubt, eventually emerging as a master who transforms New England history into timeless romance.
• George Parsons Lathrop: The biographer and critic, who seeks to understand Hawthorne through intuition, careful research, and deep aesthetic sympathy. He approaches his subject not as an intimate friend, but as a dedicated reader tracing the inner growth of a great mind.
• Horatio Bridge: Hawthorne's close college friend at Bowdoin, who provides early encouragement and an unwavering faith in Hawthorne's destiny as a writer. His steadfast support helps push Hawthorne out of his quiet seclusion into public authorship.
• Franklin Pierce: Hawthorne's college companion and lifelong friend who offers political influence and steady comradeship. His presence illustrates Hawthorne's ties to the wider world outside his literary retreat.

In Its Own Voice

"The history of Hawthorne's genius is in some sense a summary of all New England history."

This observation captures Lathrop's central premise that Hawthorne's individual artistic development cannot be separated from the historical and cultural development of his native region.

"He had little communication with even the members of his family."

Lathrop uses this detail to illustrate the extreme seclusion of Hawthorne's early adult years in Salem, where he remained isolated even within his own household.

"There is a Providence in the lives of men who act sincerely, which makes each step lead, with the best result, to the next phase of their careers."

This passage reflects Lathrop's view that Hawthorne's varied life experiences—from Brook Farm to the Old Manse—served a clear purpose in ripening his creative powers.

What It's Really About

At its heart, the book is an inquiry into the nature of literary genius and how specific historical environments nurture creative power. Lathrop argues that Hawthorne's genius was not an isolated anomaly, but the natural culmination of New England's historical experience, complete with its moral rigors, spiritual obsessions, and dark folklore. Beyond chronicling events, the text examines the creative process itself—how personal isolation, severe self-criticism, and acute observation convert raw historical memory into high art. Lathrop also defends the health and sanity of true genius, contrasting Hawthorne's balanced, artistic control over dark themes with the more morbid, unravelling susceptibility seen in writers like Edgar Allan Poe.

Why Read It Today

This volume appeals to readers who enjoy nineteenth-century literary criticism and deep dives into American cultural history. It offers an authentic, near-contemporary perspective on Hawthorne, written by someone steeped in the same literary traditions and physical landscapes. Reading it feels like sitting down with a thoughtful, highly articulate nineteenth-century essayist who values precision over sentimentality and prefers careful artistic evaluation to superficial gossip.

The primary difficulty for modern readers lies in its prose style, which reflects the formal, slightly elevated register of Victorian critical writing. Lathrop frequently digresses into lengthy comparative analyses of authors like Milton, Bunyan, and Poe, or detailed historical examinations of Salem genealogies. Readers accustomed to modern, fast-paced biographies may find these extensive critical tangents slow, but those willing to engage with Lathrop's measured pace will gain a richer appreciation of Hawthorne's artistic world and the nineteenth-century mind that sought to understand him.