May 7, 2014 |
Hawthorne on Other Writers' Houses

According to PBA Galleries, which is offering the note at auction tomorrow for an estimated $5,000-8,000, it is "a letter significant for its associations, one of the leading American authors of the 19th century making reference to the homes of his literary associates."
Coincidentally, according to John Hardy Wright's book, Hawthorne's Haunts in New England, Hawthorne finalized his purchase of the Alcotts' home in Concord, Massachusetts, only four days later. Were other writers' houses on his mind? He had been living in the borrowed West Newton, Massachusetts, home of Horace Mann and Mary Peabody Mann while writing The Blithedale Romance. In June, the Hawthornes moved out to "The Wayside," which the family kept until 1870.
Image via PBA Galleries.