As Hawthorne noted in his preface, it was “seven or eight years” since he “appeared before the public” as an author, seven if one counts his children’s book,
Tanglewood Tales, published in 1853, eight if one goes back to 1852, when he published
The Blithedale Romance, the last of the three major romances published in two years. In May he had purchased Bronson Alcott’s house in Concord, named it “The Wayside”, and declared, “[I] feel myself, for the first time in my life, at home”. He would not remain there long. On 27 July, his sister Louisa was killed in a steamboat accident on the Hudson River, and the tone of his letters darkened. Yet he continued to write, this time a campaign biography for his old friend from college days at Bowdoin, Franklin Pierce. When Pierce…
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Citation: Daly, Robert. "The Marble Faun". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 September 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=225, accessed 23 November 2024.]
