Up-Country Letters

Los 312
16.06.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
Startpreis
$ 100
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
VeranstaltungsortVereinigten Staaten, New York
Archiv
Die Auktion ist abgeschlossen. Es können keine Gebote mehr abgegeben werden.
Archive
ID 967512
Los 312 | Up-Country Letters
Schätzwert
$ 3 000 – 5 000
HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel (1804-1864). Autograph letter signed ("Nath: Hawthorne"), Brunswick, 7 January 1854 [to Henry Arthur Bright]. Tipped into: [MANSFIELD, William Lewis.] Up-Country Letters. New York: Appleton, 1852.

Wonderful Hawthorne letter reflecting on the reception of American literature in England, tipped into a first edition copy of the book which he is highly recommending: his friend Mansfield's Up-Country Letters. In late 1849, William Lewis Mansfield of Cohoes, New York, sent the manuscript of his poem “The Morning Watch” to Nathaniel Hawthorne for his critique, and Hawthorne, then finishing The Scarlet Letter, responded thoughtfully in several letters and accepted much-needed compensation. Mansfield’s work was published by George P. Putnam in 1850. Hawthorne declined further money but accepted bottles of champagne in Lenox. Similarly, in late 1850 or early 1851, Mansfield submitted his epistolary manuscript “Up-Country Letters” to Hawthorne for his judgment, and Sophia reported that her husband, who was finishing another book (The House of the Seven Gables), was “much pleased” with his correspondent’s new project, finding it “true & graphic” (Harold Blodgett, “Hawthorne as Poetry Critic: Six Unpublished Letters to Lewis Mansfield,” American Literature, Vol. 12, No. 2 [1940]: 184).

Mansfield’s sometimes-musing, sometimes-bemused letters included a graceful acknowledgment of “the deep mosses of Hawthorne”—presumably the 1846 collection Mosses from an Old Manse. Mentioning first the bobolinks that he had seen out the window, Mansfield then considered Hawthorne’s “deep mosses” “like-beautiful things” (57-58). Hawthorne later referred to Up-Country Letters when visiting Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Blodgett 175) and asked William D. Ticknor to send a copy of the book to writer and politician Richard Monckton Milnes. The January 7, 1854, manuscript letter tipped into this volume is to Hawthorne’s close friend in Liverpool, Henry A. Bright. It expands revealingly on Hawthorne’s view of Mansfield’s volume: “I send an American book—‘Up-Country Letters’—which I beg you to read & hope you will like it. It would gratify me much if you would talk about it, or write about it, and get it into some degree of notice in this country. England, within two or three years past, has read & praised a hundred American books that do not deserve it half so well; but I somewhat question whether the English mind is not rather too bluff and beef-y to appreciate the peculiar charm of these letters. Yet we have produced nothing more original, nor more genuine.”

Letter: 1 1/4 pages, 12mo, rectos only, conjoined leaves (tiny fold tear). Published, CE 17:163. Volume: 12mo (180 x 120mm). Engraved frontispiece and additional title. Later 19th century calf (spine browned and chipped, some wear to edges). Provenance: Sotheby's New York, 26 June 2000, lot 189.
Adresse der Versteigerung CHRISTIE'S
20 Rockefeller Plaza
10020 New York
Vereinigten Staaten
Vorschau
16.06.2023
Telefon +1 212 636 2000
Fax +1 212 636 4930
E-Mail
NutzungsbedingungenNutzungsbedingungen
Versand Postdienst
Kurierdienst
Selbstabholung
Zahlungsarten Banküberweisung
GeschäftszeitenGeschäftszeiten
Mo 09:30 – 17:00   
Di 09:30 – 17:00   
Mi 09:30 – 17:00   
Do 09:30 – 17:00   
Fr 09:30 – 17:00   
Sa geschlossen
So geschlossen

Mehr von Creator

Mosses from an old Manse, inscribed by Sophia Hawthorne
Mosses from an old Manse, inscribed by Sophia Hawthorne
$3 000
Mudie’s Natural History of Birds
Mudie’s Natural History of Birds
$100
True Stories from History and Biography, The Snow-Image, and A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys
True Stories from History and Biography, The Snow-Image, and A Wonder-Book for Girls and Boys
$100
On Franklin Pierce and his new office as U.S. Consul
On Franklin Pierce and his new office as U.S. Consul
$1 000
Inchiquin, 1810
Inchiquin, 1810
$100
Thanking his friend for his financial support
Thanking his friend for his financial support
$5 000
Tanglewood Tales
Tanglewood Tales
$100
The Marble Faun, inscribed by Pierce
The Marble Faun, inscribed by Pierce
$2 000

Verwandte Begriffe

?>