Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Oliver Wendell Holmes - photo 1
Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Oliver Wendell Holmes - photo 2
Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Oliver Wendell Holmes - photo 3

Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Oliver Wendell Holmes

Starting price
$ 20 000
Auction dateClassic
15.06.2023 10:00UTC -04:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
USA, New York
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Archive
ID 967675
Lot 99 | Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Oliver Wendell Holmes
Tanglewood Tales, inscribed to Oliver Wendell Holmes

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 wonderful association between two distinguished writers of the 19th century: the first American edition, first printing, inscribed by Hawthorne to another renowned New Englander, the physician, poet, and polymath Oliver Wendell Holmes: "O.W. Holmes from his friend N.H." on the front endpaper.



Tanglewood Tales is Hawthorne's last children’s book. He would remark later that the problem with the Minotaur—the story's eponymous title character—is that it was “an enemy of his fellow-creatures, and separated from all good companionship” (CE 7:207). Hawthorne provides, by contrast, in this touching presentation copy a clear testimony to good companionship in his inscription to fellow writer Oliver Wendell Holmes. The voluble Holmes accepted the sometimes-shy Hawthorne on his own terms—when Hawthorne protested an invitation to the Saturday Club, saying hyperbolically that he couldn’t drink—couldn’t eat—couldn’t talk—Holmes genially ventured that he could listen (Annie Fields, Authors and Friends, 131-32). The Saturday Club included major writers and thinkers of the 19th century, among them Holmes, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, James Russell Lowell, and John Greenleaf Whittier, and it was in its gatherings that the Atlantic Monthly was created, with Holmes even supplying its name. Holmes later offered an appreciative dream-vision of Hawthorne in “At the Saturday Club,” writing in part, with much understanding, “Count it no marvel that he broods alone / Over the heart he studies,—’tis his own; / So in his page whatever shape it wear, / The Essex wizard’s shadowed self is there” (Atlantic Monthly, July 1884). Holmes would remain a steadfast friend, offering his counsel to Hawthorne in illness and paying tribute to him after his death. He closed with loving words: “Our literature could ill spare the rich ripe autumn of such a life as Hawthorne’s, but he has left enough to keep his name in remembrance as long as the language in which he shaped his deep imaginations is spoken by human lips” (“Hawthorne,” Atlantic Monthly, July 1864).



Inscribed copies of Tanglewood Tales are rare at auction: only two other copies are recorded in RBH, with the most recent in 1974. This copy additionally with the calling card of Mr O.W. Holmes, Jr, loosely inserted: "Ned with love Merry Christmas from his uncle." 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 green cloth, gilt-stamped spine and blind-stamped covers (spine ends chipped, repair to cloth at rear joint, corners showing); modern half morocco box. Provenance: Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (authorial inscription) — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. (calling card; gifted to his nephew).

Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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15.06.2023
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