Hawthorne's Lost Notebook, 1835–1841

Lost since his widow published bowdlerized excerpts in 1866 and 1868, Nathaniel Hawthorne's original Salem Notebook—the one containing more ideas for stories and "articles" than any other—is here published for the first time.

The earliest Notebook that Hawthorne is known to have kept, this one "may seem to the student of Hawthorne as man and writer the most important of all the Notebooks," according to Professor Waggoner's introduction. The only Notebook written wholly in Salem before Hawthorne's marriage to Sophia Peabody in 1842, this one's entries contain the best evidence of how he lived and what he felt during his so-called years of solitude.

"In this dismal and squalid chamber Fame was won," writes Hawthorne about the first notices of Twice-Told Tale. Sophia's version—published after her husband's death—omits "and squalid," thus concealing his apparent sense of shame or guilt, along with low spirits. Also deleted by Sophia are entries revealing Hawthorne's unshocked observations of the shapes of girls' legs and of such improprieties as public drunkenness. Sophia's editorial pen was equally ruthless with items of "curious lore" about such things as butter and mustard seed. Finally Hawthorne's "morbid" entries, chiefly for horror stories never written, received no mercy from his widow. Now examining the complete text of the Lost Notebook, every reader can make his or her own interpretation of what the unexpurgated text reveals.

The present edition contains a facsimile of The 1835–41 Notebook, which now resides in The Pierpont Morgan Library collection of all extant American Notebooks by Hawthorne. This edition also contains a transcript—because of Hawthorne's small, crabbed handwriting—prepared by Barbara Mouffe, who found the Lost Notebook in 1976. A preface by Mrs. Mouffe describes her discovery of the Lost Notebook among her mothers effects; her identification of it, with confirmation by experts; and her detective work in tracing its acquisition by her family. An introduction by Professor Waggoner, who served as Mrs. Mouffe's advisor, describes the value of the Lost Notebook as "the first major addition to the canon of Hawthorne's writing since Randall Stewart's faithful version of the then extant American Notebooks in 1931."