The Complete Works of Nathaniel Hawthorne.

HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel.

Item Number: 3581

Cambridge: Cambridge: The Riverside Press, 1883.

The Riverside Edition. Limited to 250 sets. Octavo, 12 volumes. Three-quarters blue morocco, gilt titles to the spine, top edges gilt. Illustrated with etchings by Blum, Church, Dielman, Gifford, Shirlaw, and Turner. In near fine condition. A very attractive, early Hawthorne set.

The widely celebrated author has been revered not only by the public but by his literary contemporaries as well. Edgar Allen Poe said, "[t]he style of Hawthorne is purity itself. His tone is singularly effective-wild, plaintive, thoughtful, and in full accordance with his themes... We look upon him as one of the few men of indisputable genius to whom our country has as yet given birth" (McFarland, 1988). Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote later that "Nathaniel Hawthorne's reputation as a writer is a very pleasing fact, because his writing is not good for anything, and this is a tribute to the man" (Nelson, 1981). Henry James praised Hawthorne, saying, "The fine thing in Hawthorne is that he cared for the deeper psychology, and that, in his way, he tried to become familiar with it" (Porte, 1969). Lastly, the poet John Greenleaf Whittier wrote that he enjoyed the "weird and subtle beauty" in Hawthorne's tales (Woodland, 1985).