The Weal-Reaf. A Record of the Essex Institute Fair, held at Salem, Sept. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, with Two Supplementary Numbers, Sept. 10, 11.
[Salem, Mass: Charles W. Swasey], 1860.
Price: $400.00
About the item
[iv], 56, [4, ads] pp. 1 vols. 8vo. Near contemporary half red calf, spine titled in gilt. Light wear to extremities. In blue morocco-backed gilt slipcase by Stikeman. Bookplate of Agnes Neustadt. Clark D83; BAL 7623.
Item #306302
This is a newspaper published for the Essex Institute Fair in eight parts. Parts 2 and 3 (at pp. 14 and 28) contain a two-part letter from Hawthorne, addressed to “My Dear Cousin” and dated August 28, 1860. In it, Hawthorne explains that, while he is unable to write a story for the benefit of his “native townspeople” because his “mind seems to have lost the plan and measure of those little narratives [i.e. Twice-Told Tales and the Mosses from an old Manse], in which it was once so unprofitably fertile,” but, so as not to let them down, will attempt “to describe a spot near Salem, on which it was once my purpose to locate such a dreamy fiction as you now demand of me.” Hawthorne goes on to describe a hill once known as “Browne’s Folly”.
