Nathaniel Hawthorne’s second book for children, Famous Old People (1841), is the sequel to Grandfather’s Chair. Like Grandfather’s Chair, Famous Old People is composed of a Preface and eleven chapters, but four rather than five formally titled stories. Hawthorne playfully signals his continuation of the historical stories and of the narrative model that he had established in Grandfather’s Chair by beginning the Preface with “Grandfather again shoves his great Chair before the youthful public, and desires to make them acquainted with a new dynasty of occupants”. “The iron race of Puritans” who were portrayed in the first book for children are now replaced we are told by “quite a different set of men” (71). These men are governors, politicians, and soldiers who by both nature and by occupation have “no pretension to that high religious...
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Citation: Laffrado, Laura. "Famous Old People". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 August 2011; last revised 18 September 2025. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=33485, accessed 09 June 2026.]
