NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE (1804-1864)

Hawthorne, heir to the Puritan tradition and influenced by the transcendental currents of his own day, drew on the history of colonial New England and his native Salem in the time of is ancestors for many of his plots. He saw guilt- imagined or real, revealed or concealed - as a universal human experience, and this theme is central to Fanshawe, his first work of fiction.

Fanshawe, published anonymously at Hawthorne's own expense three years after he graduated from Bowdoin College, is a tale of concealed identity, abduction, flight and pursuit that shows the influence of the Gothic novel tradition. The author withdrew Fanshawe from circulation and destroyed as many copies as possible, including those belonging to friends and relatives. Hawthorne also did not include it later among his acknowledged works. This copy is a first edition, in the original brown paper boards with buff-colored paper label on the spine.