Biographical Stories

by Nathaniel Hawthorne

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Genres: Biography

66 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 17, 1842

About the author

Nathaniel Hawthorne was a 19th century American novelist and short story writer. He is seen as a key figure in the development of American literature for his tales of the nation's colonial history.

Shortly after graduating from Bowdoin College, Hathorne changed his name to Hawthorne. Hawthorne anonymously published his first work, a novel titled Fanshawe, in 1828. In 1837, he published Twice-Told Tales and became engaged to painter and illustrator Sophia Peabody the next year. He worked at a Custom House and joined a Transcendentalist Utopian community, before marrying Peabody in 1842. The couple moved to The Old Manse in Concord, Massachusetts, later moving to Salem, the Berkshires, then to The Wayside in Concord. The Scarlet Letter was published in 1850, followed by a succession of other novels. A political appointment took Hawthorne and family to Europe before returning to The Wayside in 1860. Hawthorne died on May 19, 1864, leaving behind his wife and their three children.

Much of Hawthorne's writing centers around New England and many feature moral allegories with a Puritan inspiration. His work is considered part of the Romantic movement and includes novels, short stories, and a biography of his friend, the United States President Franklin Pierce.

Reviews

[Anisha Inkspill]

This is an earlier work by Nathaniel Hawthorne written for children. Edward Temple, a nine-year-old, is having a tough time, he has recently become blind. He lives with his family who are sensitive to this. To help Edward come to terms with his blindness the father tells the whole family stories.

These stories are childhood experiences of 6 famous people, two of these are Benjamin Franklin and Samuel Johnson. They are moral tales to teach young people good acceptable behaviour and to define gender roles.

Today, reading this feels outdated, this was written for an audience of a different time and expectations. What caught my attention was its structure and how it effortlessly moves between two modes of storytelling.

[Judith · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories, written as if told by a father to his children, offer a window on the moral instruction of 19th century children. From my perspective, two centuries later, I thought it was a good thing that the father included a woman among the famous characters he was telling the children about, but I was wrong. Selecting Queen Christina just let him carry and on about how girls educated like boys grow up to be unhappy women, saying that she failed as a queen, that she wore men’s clothes, and that she didn’t even wash! Since reading this, I have read that Queen Chistina did abdicate rather than marry, she did wear men’s clothes sometimes and she neglected her appearance, but our story teller actually said she went all around Europe with dirty hands and face!

[Sean Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hawthorne Hawks #76
Well after a delay with Hawthorne as I worked through The Scarlet Letter, this next one came quite quickly, it was after all a short book of several biographical sketches of people of history.
Somewhat interesting but not really overly memorable.
Still it is interesting to see the differences in Hawthorne's works.