Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Bright - photo 1
Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Bright - photo 2
Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Bright - photo 3

Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Bright

Lot 100
15.06.2023 10:00UTC -05:00
Classic
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$ 12 600
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUSA, New York
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ID 967575
Lot 100 | Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Bright
Estimate value
$ 10 000 – 15 000
Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Bright

Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1853

HAWTHORNE, Nathaniel (1804-1864). Tanglewood Tales, for Girls and Boys; being a Second Wonder-Book. Boston: Ticknor, Reed, and Fields, 1853.



A presentation copy of the first American edition, first printing, inscribed by Hawthorne: "Mr H.A. Bright with the author's regards." Inscribed copies are rare at auction: only two others are recorded in RBH, with the most recent in 1974.



Hawthorne's presentation to Bright speaks to a new friendship that would grow and become of great consequence to both men (see the letters to Bright later in the sale). Bright was introduced to Hawthorne in Concord in 1852 and when the Hawthornes moved to Liverpool in 1853 Bright took him around the city, introduced him to people; and subsequently traveled with him through England. Bright was, Sophia Hawthorne stated, “a slender, diaphanous young gentleman, of a nervous temperament” (Rose Hawthorne Lathrop, Memories of Hawthorne, 242). The two men took particular pleasure in arguing with one another, the Brit versus the Yankee, John Bull versus Brother Jonathan. Sophia noted, “They fight in all love and honor all the time” (Edwin Haviland Miller, Salem is My Dwelling Place, 420). Hawthorne wrote appreciatively in “Consular Experiences,” “Bright was the illumination of my dusky little apartment, as often as he made his appearance there!” (CE 5:39).



During Christmas 1855, Bright wrote a poem titled “Song of Consul Hawthorne,” with the meter of Longfellow’s “Hiawatha,” affectionately mocking the Consul’s private nature. He insightfully wrote of Hawthorne, “Thinks one friend worth twenty friendly.” Hawthorne’s son Julian later reported, “This little jeu d’esprit pleased Hawthorne much” (Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife, 2:79-80). Returning to the United States in 1860, Hawthorne left the manuscript of his novel The Marble Faun with Bright and, back in Concord, predicted the success of Bright’s marriage—“No woman can have won a truer, kinder, happier-natured man” (CE 18:354). Bright wrote to Hawthorne, “It is one of the best things in my life to have made a friend of you” (Miller, 420).



Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who had written a letter of introduction for Bright in 1852, responded to Bright after Hawthorne’s death in 1864, “I am glad to know how deeply you feel this loss; for I know, having heard it from his own lips, that he liked you more than any man in England” (Julian Hawthorne, Nathaniel Hawthorne and His Wife, 2:350). This presentation copy of Tanglewood Tales from Hawthorne to Bright richly represents the strong friendship between the two men. BAL 7614 (first printing, with only Boston Stereotype Foundry on the copyright page); Clark A22.2a.



Octavo (166 x 105mm). Engraved vignette title-page and six plates (no adverts present). Original blue cloth, gilt-stamped spine and blind-stamped covers (spine ends a little rubbed, cloth a little soiled); modern quarter morocco box. Provenance: Henry A. Bright (authorial inscription and bookplate).

Artist:Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804 - 1864)
Auction house category:Printed books
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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15.06.2023
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